Andrei Piontkovsky has an incendiary column published through Project Syndicate alleging the economic interests of some Russia commentators in the United States.  This one is bound to raise some controversy.

The Kremlin's achievements in securing the help of Americans willing to offer their influence are equally impressive. Indeed, the Obama administration's Russia policy is being nurtured with advice from people who have no official position in the administration, but close business ties to Russia and the Kremlin: Henry Kissinger, James A. Baker, Thomas Graham, and Dimitri Simes. The first two are major geopolitical figures; Graham and Simes are respected as outstanding Russia specialists. They write key reports for the administration, and shuttle between Moscow and Washington, coordinating the parameters of the Obama administration's effort to "reset" the bilateral relationship.

Like Schroeder, all these

...

Nothing breaks up the Monday blues like a yet another video from Henry Kissinger talking about North Korea and Russia.  Fast forward to about 10:30 to get to the Russia stuff.  The banter is pretty predictable from Kissinger - we are meant to feel bad that Russia has lost 300 years of expansionary history in 20 years.

Embedded video from CNN Video

Just when I thought I was all done posting video interviews from my last trip to Washington, I saw Bob's post today about the Gary Hart and Dmitri Simes article about realism, interests, and the prospects for cooperation between the Obama Administration and Russia.  In response, I have gathered together some of the last scraps of the interview I shot with David Satter from the cutting room floor, as his comments strangely seem to engage almost in a direct dialogue with the Hart and Simes piece, especially in terms of debating realism (though the interview occured a month before this article was published).  Some of my questions to Satter stemmed from an article he published in Forbes in November 2008 containing advice for Obama on Russia, including the point to "ignore the realists."  Taken together, the video ...

div align=”justify”emstrongIn recent years, it has taken over $5 of new debt to generate an incremental dollar of US national income, a ratio up 70% in a decade./strong/em Debt, like any economic factor, suffers from diminishing marginal returns. US gross national debt/GDP will rise to 82.5% in 2010 (up from 55% in 2000) according to span class=”blsp-spelling-error” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_0″OECD/span projections, after running at least a 12% fiscal deficit this year. Globally, only two other major economies, Japan at 177% and Italy at 115% will have higher debt burdens, but both have enormous private sector savings and little personal debt. Household mortgage and financial sector debt both doubled from 2000 to 2007 from a base that was itself an all-time high. /divdiv align=”justify”Most of this debt was taken out to overpay for non-productive assets like real-estate that continue to decline in value, while income available to service the payments is under pressure. …

Apparently I missed quite the stinging attack against Henry Kissinger made by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during his visit to CFR about a month ago. This is interesting to me because for the past six months or so Kissinger has been seen as the leading proponent in the U.S. foreign policy community for rapprochement with Russia, pushing a softer policy line. In a by-lined WaPo article along with George Shulz, Kissinger argued that "We believe that the fundamental interests of the United States, Europe and Russia are more aligned today -- or can be made so -- even in the wake of the Georgian crisis, than at any point in recent history. We must not waste that opportunity." Just a couple weeks earlier, Lavrov had this to say about Kissinger's understanding of events in the Caucasus:

Just one question… If, per Hank Paulson, "taxpayers" are going to own stock in financial companies, where do I sign up to get the dividend checks? OK, I concede that's a lame attempt at humor, especially on a day when Paul Krugman wins the Nobel Prize in economics. Brings to mind what Tom Lehrer said 35 years ago about political satire becoming obsolete with Henry Kissinger winning the peace prize.

From Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: McCain's scorn for Barack Obama was on unrestrained display in Friday night's debate. How dare this impudent whippersnapper imagine he can be president, you could almost see McCain thinking. I'm the one who's racked up the frequent-flier miles to Waziristan! Henry Kissinger and I were BFFs when Obama was glued to "The Brady Bunch"! Listening to McCain debate was like a stroll down foreign policy memory lane: Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko. George Shultz, "our great secretary of state." Perestroika. SDI. Those were the days, my friend. We thought the Cold War would never end. Maybe we should just ask everybody who were direct participants in the Cold War on both sides to just take a step back from government and policy circles, and let some of us without these burdensome historical hangovers take a crack at understanding each other.... Oh god, did I just ...

Before sending me an e-mail telling me I am wrong, let me admit it!! I am WRONG -- silver is not the only asset that is not someone else's liability. But some of the staunchest "Gold Bugs" have it wrong and insist that gold is the only asset. In fact, fully-owned lumber or land or even an apple orchard are assets, and again, if owned outright would be an asset without a liability. Before moving on, I must digress and point out that silver is the ONLY asset that reflects light better than any other element the ONLY asset that conducts heat better than any other element the ONE asset, more than even gold, used as money -- for longer periods of time and by more people throughout world history The real rub is how silver will do in times of financial stress. Certainly we can look to history ...

President Dmitry Medvedev has called on security chiefs to establish a formal border in the Arctic, territory which he views as crucial to Russian energy security. Arms control advocates see the nuclear energy accord between the US and India as potentially damaging anti-proliferation efforts. Henry Kissinger writes on how the world’s biggest oil consumers might change the current dynamic of energy supply and demand. Britain’s impending energy shortfall will leave it vulnerable to Russia, says one journalist. Gazprom and LUKoil have been fined for charging identical prices for gasoline and diesel. The International Energy Agency has warned that the world economy faces a recession if the price of oil stays above $90 a barrel. The US says it will take measures against companies it believes are assisting Iran with its nuclear program.

Why is oil going high and going higher? Well, basically, the world economy is growing at 4%. The world oil supply is flat or growing — at most — 1%. The world economy runs on oil. And that’s a recipe for higher oil prices.

Here is a movie you might want to check out …

And here’s another one. I don’t know if they’re really making a movie of Kunstler’s book, but the book is great. Here’s a movie trailer … maybe it’s just an ad for the book?

Quote for the day ……