Russia: even worse than it seems
July 18th, 2005
Murray Feshbach, who I referenced in an earlier post about Russia’s terrifying demographic decline, offers a comment:
If anything I would now say that I was underestimating the losses to the population of Russia in the future. The current official projection (medium) by the Russian State Statistical Agency is some 101 million in 2050. My expectation is that the number will be closer to 75-80, approximately the level of worst-case scenario. The current and imminent number of deaths from HIV/AIDS is much worse than anticipated, as well as the number of deaths from tuberculosis. In addition, hepatitis C deaths will, ceteris paribus, begin to be devastating at the end of the next decade. None of these health factors were incorporated into the projection model of the Statistical Agency.
Decisions
July 18th, 2005
Simon London reviews two books on decision-making in today’s Financial Times (subscribers only). A nice summation: “The job of any leader is to create an organisation that resembles the Balkans before a decision and Switzerland after the event.”