One of the most pressing questions that arises in a currency crisis like Russia's -- and whose answer (along with surging oil prices) helped Russia rebound from its 1998 ruble meltdown -- is whether there are significant domestic sectors that can benefit from devaluation. Which invites the question:
QUIZ: What Does Russia Make?
Interesting headline on a column in Russian state's latest international media venture, the Sputnik "counterpropaganda" news agency:
If you aren't familiar with Sputnik, here's correspondent Daisy Sindelar's recent item that pretty much sums them up:
Five Things The Kremlin's New Media Agency Thinks The West Should Fear About Itself
Just to re-up ICYMI, here's that YouTube video of Grad rockets being fired -- apparently by pro-Russian militants -- from next to apartment blocks in Donetsk.
Russians instead should remember the “historic” words Stalin uttered on February 4, 1931, and launch a similar mobilization program to rebuild and expand Russia’s industrial base.
Such an effort, Super suggests, would allow the country to withstand any foreign challenges just as Stalin’s allowed the USSR to hold out “against the united force of Europe in the Great Fatherland War.”
Read more of Paul Goble's piece here: