Russia's Big Challenge

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20627]

How do you handle a problem like Xenophobia when your population is in serious decline?


 

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Russia, you see, has a serious problem with population decline. They’re expecting a 28 percent plunge in women of childbearing age by 2032. Their population peaked at about 148 million, in 1991.

You might notice that as the year of the collapse of communism. After the revolution, a series of factors — including introduction to the joys of international capitalism, with the accompanying loss of free health care, spiking economic inequality, accelerated substance abuse, etc. — caused Russia to begin shrinking.

The average life expectancy of Russian males plunged six years, from a pre-perestroika high of about 70 years to a low of about 64, in 1994. Soon, while American men had a 1 in 11 chance of dying before the age of 55, the dice roll for Russian males was about 1 in 4. The economic catastrophe of the Nineties resulted in at least a few million premature deaths and possibly more, depending on what study you believe.

Sharp increases in mortality seemed directly tied to economic events, like the 1998 collapse of the ruble. Specifically, increased deaths were most commonly tied to alcohol consumption, followed by associated health complications, homicide, suicide and booze-related accidents: flying passenger liners under the influence, forgetting you’re on an ice floe while fishing, guzzling methanol-spiked bath lotion when you run out of vodka, etc.

Russia introduced a series of reforms beginning in 2006 designed to make drinking oneself to death harder. They also introduced economic changes designed to reverse the damage of the Nineties, aiming to reduce poverty, increase access to health care, etc.

Reforms had some effect, and Russia’s population eked up to about 144 million for a while. It stayed there for about 10 years, before beginning recently to plunge anew.

Citizens are fleeing to other countries in search of better jobs, and not just to the West, but to places like Kazakhstan. As Bloomberg writes, even the recent addition of 2.3 Crimeans “won’t offset” the statistical trend, and the UN expects Russia’s population to drop to 119 million by 2050, unless it begins opening up its borders.

 

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Meanwhile, here in America, the entire country is up in arms about a caravan of 7,000 people who actually want to come here. This is despite the fact that we suddenly have a lot of the same problems that hit Russia decades ago.

Our own life expectancy rates have begun decreasing, and for a lot of the same reasons that struck Russia: drug and alcohol abuse, poor diet, despair, pessimism, suicide, lack of social mobility, poor access to health care, high income inequality.

Political factors are also playing a role. Native-born Americans are beginning to get bummed out by the current environment to the point of looking to relocate to other countries like France. At the same time, would-be skilled immigrant workers are looking elsewhere, to places like Canada, because of, among other things, our surging “antagonism” toward foreigners.

Remember how Trump was so mad that so many people from “shithole” countries wanted to come here? (“Why do we need more Haitians?” he asked). Remember how he wanted more people from Norway?

Well, people from Norway aren’t coming for the simple reason that their country does not suck, and ours increasingly does. As the Atlantic put it:

Norway is the world’s happiest country (the U.S. ranks 14), the place with the most political freedom (the U.S. ranks 45), most press freedom (the U.S. ranks 43rd), and most prosperity (the U.S. ranks 18).

Forty-third in press freedom! Forty-fifth in political freedom! Awesome. And those numbers are sure to plummet further. Within a few years, migrant caravans will be asking for passage through the U.S. to Canada.

Nonetheless, Trump is telling a few thousand of the dwindling number of people worldwide who actually want to come to our crumbling idiot’s paradise to turn around and go home.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/xenophobia-in-2018-748010/


 

[gmr548 16635]

Just send them the 63m Trumpkins for a future first round pick and a prospect to be named later. Win-win.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20627]

1 minute ago, gmr548 said:

Just send them the 63m Trumpkins for a future first round pick and a prospect to be named later. Win-win.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 

 

Not a bad solution. After all, some of them were saying that they'd rather be Russian than democrats .....

[Pescado_Rojo 19453]

40MM of them are well beyond child rearing years, so it would be a temporary fix for them

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

1 hour ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

How do you handle a problem like Xenophobia when your population is in serious decline?


 

 

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/xenophobia-in-2018-748010/


 

I wonder if the Kremlin even sees this as a legitimate problem.  

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20627]

49 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I wonder if the Kremlin even sees this as a legitimate problem.  

 

Clearly they do. It's already a drag on their economy. That's why they recently loosened immigration laws.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

14 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

 

Clearly they do. It's already a drag on their economy. That's why they recently loosened immigration laws.

Their economy isn’t dogshit because of a lack of people. 

[happyfunball 481]

1 hour ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I wonder if the Kremlin even sees this as a legitimate problem.  

 

17 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

 

Clearly they do. It's already a drag on their economy. That's why they recently loosened immigration laws.

Also increased tax incentives for having additional children

[Woland 749]

1 hour ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I wonder if the Kremlin even sees this as a legitimate problem.  

There are ads in the metro calling for women to have babies for the motherland.

[Mapache 1117]

Drinking too much vodka then driving on ice is apparently a problem there also

 

 

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