Rogozin the Even More Ridiculous
Dmitry Rogozin is a blogger’s best friend. You only have to link and quote: no need to add satire. His latest? Russia’s population needs to grow to 500 million:
But Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin set the bar a whole lot higher Thursday, saying the country’s goal should be a population of 500 million — more than triple its current size.”140 million people—that’s [too] little. The solution is either to complain that we have those Chinese people, or not to point to our neighbor but to have children. Without children Russia will not have a population of 500 million, which we absolutely need,” Rogozin said in a speech to university students in Novosibirsk, RIA-Novosti reported.
Rogozin called for measures that authorities have advocated before, including cash incentives to promote large families and assistance to families in securing housing.
He also suggested creating new population centers across the country, including one that would help to develop eastern Russia.
“Incentives need to be created for developing the eastern part of the country. First, we have all the necessary resources for this, and secondly, the human ‘gulf stream’ washing people away from these regions needs to be stopped,” Rogozin said.
Look, the country has no chance of making it to 500 million arms, and before 2050 is in danger of falling below 500 million arms and legs. Even by Rogozin’s high standards, this is crazed.
His disquisition about the eastern part of the country–Siberia, in other words–is quite interesting This was an obsession of Russians and especially the Soviets. As Hill and Gaddy argue in Siberian Curse, this obsession has been disastrous, levying a huge economic and human toll on the country. But Rogozin is undeterred, and advocates trying again what has failed before.
Rogozin’s speech begs an important question: just why is there a “human ‘gulf stream’ washing people away from these regions”? The answer is pretty obvious. But Rogozin appears intent on on pushing against this tide.
The man is insane. The man is also deputy prime minister, and widely noted as a comer in Russian politics.
Draw your own conclusions.
This country is ruled by thieves, crooks, murderers,crazies,idiots etc. What a specimen!
Comment by voroBey — February 11, 2012 @ 4:14 pm
PS. Russia’s population grew by 160,000 in 2011.
Natural population growth was positive for the last 6 months of 2011.
I wonder when the commentators on SWP’s will acknowledge that my projections were, in fact, correct.
Comment by Sublime Oblivion — February 11, 2012 @ 5:52 pm
Actually it’s quite feasible if not likely that catastrophic climate change drastically reduces the carrying capacity of the southern regions by 2050, and if Russia lets in the climate refugees.
Comment by Sublime Oblivion — February 11, 2012 @ 5:54 pm
Wrong as usual Sublime Retardation, the fact is that more deaths occurred in Russia than births in 2011. The (minimal) increase of 0.15% in the population was due to immigration mostly from central Asia and Armenia.
Year Avg Pop Live Births Deaths Natural Change Births/1000 Deaths/1000 Natural change Fertility rate
2011 143,030,106 1,793,828 1,925,036 -131,208 12,6 13,5 -0.9 1,61
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#After_WW_II.5B30.5D.5B31.5D
Of course we know you are never going to contribute to natural population growth don’t we……
Comment by Andrew — February 12, 2012 @ 1:44 am
every time you think they have hit rock bottom, it turns out to be just another ledge. this is beyond farce and tragedy: government as a DaDa – ist art work?
Comment by sotos — February 12, 2012 @ 12:09 pm
Apparently Putin isn’t all that confident in your “All is Well” diagnosis, S/O.
Some 20 years ago there were probably 400 million fluent speakers of Russian. It is very likely that in 20 years this number will drop to under 120 million.
Comment by TM — February 13, 2012 @ 8:20 am
Read the article in full (i.e. in context) and come back to us, SWP.
Comment by Sublime Oblivion — February 13, 2012 @ 1:05 pm
I’ll expound. The 107 million figure comes from an “inertial scenario” (Putin’s words) that is utterly unrealistic as it assumes (among other things) life expectancy isn’t going to improve to 2050.
He also notes that another scenario, the one he will presumably preside over, has the population increased to 154 million. This is fully within range of my own forecasts.
Comment by Sublime Oblivion — February 13, 2012 @ 3:14 pm
Hmmm, so let’s see.
SUBLIME PSYCHOPATH says “Russia’s population grew by 160,000 in 2011. Natural population growth was positive for the last 6 months of 2011.”
But Russia received 14 million immigrants.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/14-million-new-migrants-flocked-to-russia-in-2011/452266.html
So how come the population didn’t grow by 14 million, then? Only two possible answers: (a) 14 million Russian citizens fled the country, or (b) in the first six months of 2011, 14 million Russian citizens perished.
Or is SUBLIME PSYCHOPATH saying his “figures” don’t include immigration, in which case the country’s population actually GREW BY FOURTEEN MILLION last year?
Comment by La Russophobe — February 14, 2012 @ 5:03 am
“The most damning statistic – apparently – on the Russian health care system is a simple one: while longevity in Western Europe is dramatically increasing, in Russia it’s going the other way. Life expectancy is decreasing. Life expectancy at birth in Russia in 2000 was a relatively low 67.1 years but in 2011 it was even less – 66.2 years.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/expathealth/9080042/Expat-guide-to-Russia-health-care.html
Comment by La Russophobe — February 14, 2012 @ 5:27 am
No person in their right mind would migrate to a country where 10% of the population perish in a single year, so those figures are either mutually contradictory or you don’t understand their nuances (hint: There is legal and illegal immigration; total immigration, and NET immigration; etc). Try again.
Russia’s life expectancy is 70.3 years (2011) and rising. Again, try again.
You’ll get there eventually. You have finally wised up to the irrelevance of the liberal protesters, so clearly you do have some limited capacity for learning.
Comment by Sublime Oblivion — February 14, 2012 @ 7:16 am
Siberia is big. AFAIK, South Siberia has a more reliable growing season than middle Russia.
Comment by So? — February 14, 2012 @ 7:53 am
Lying again I see Sublime retardation.
The 2011 figures for Russia are:
CIA World fact book
Russia total population: 66.29 years
male: 59.8 years
female: 73.17 years (2011 est.)
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2102.html
Comment by Andrew — February 14, 2012 @ 1:40 pm
CIA data is years out of date.
I have already commented about that at length.
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/russia-putin-demography-239.cfm
Comment by Sublime Oblivion — February 14, 2012 @ 9:34 pm
Sublime Retardation. No one is interested in reading your drivel.
Comment by Andrew — February 15, 2012 @ 12:22 am
@LR though I differ with S/O on many (truthfully, almost all) philosophical points vis a vis Russia, his math kung-fu is superior to yours. The CIA factbook is too simplistic for in-depth demographic analysis.
That said, S/O’s views on Russian demographics depend on a couple of factors that, from my perspective, represent some faulty thinking.
First, the gks.ru website has some good population projections (sorry you non-Russian speakers…it’s not on the English side) in a best/likely/worst case scenario format. GKS is to be commended for their honesty in that in NONE of the scenarios do purely internal (that is to say, existing Russian citizens) population numbers increase. Indeed, in every scenario, it is only tens of millions of notional immigrants from Central Asia that save the day and boost Russian population.
Now, there is currently a flood of migrants coming into Russia from the Stans. How many are seasonal and how many are here to stay is anybody’s guess (though FMS is doing better work on tracking this).
But the second issue I take with the ‘all isn’t necessarily well but isn’t THAT bad…hey look at Latvia’ schtick that S/O peddles is that his projections assume that Russia will always be a welcoming beacon for immigrants and that Central Asia will empty out in a global climate change induced catastrophe. These are some pretty big leaps.
I’m seeing a disturbing increase in ethnic intolerance in my workaday Russia. I fervently hope that it won’t get worse but the feeling on the street here isn’t the “hey, everyone’s welcome” attitude you’d expect from a dwindling nation.
And I don’t think any GCC models are good enough to forecast the doom of half of Asia.
Comment by Swoggler — February 15, 2012 @ 1:09 am
SWOGGLER: I did not cite the CIA factbook.
Comment by La Russophobe — February 15, 2012 @ 6:39 am
Indeed you did not. My research kung-fu has failed. I maligned you in error.
Perfesser, I submit myself for bestowal of your site’s equivalent of the Cone of Shame…though I stand by the rest of my earlier post.
Comment by Swoggler — February 16, 2012 @ 12:09 pm
It’s OK Swoggler. No corporal punishment or public humiliation in the pillory. Very, very lucky for some people. And I have been tempted!