Contrast these two stories: firefighters will be going unpaid in December and Russia rearms.  In documents leaked to the media in the Sverdlovsk region, the ministry responsible for emergency services and civil defense told its employees that they needed to take out pay day loans because the ministry didn’t have money to pay them and that they would be paid in January.  At the same time the Kremlin has ambitious plans to rearm adding submarines, fixed and rotary wing aircraft, air defense missiles, and, more troubling, tanks and self-propelled artillery.  The artillery is troubling, because its main use would be against its neighbors.

The military expenditures are to bring Russia back into great power status, but for how long?  It is not sustainable at current oil prices, since Russia is essentially a petro state.  Iranian oil soon hits the market depressing prices further.  It can’t pay its firefighters.

Historically, the Russian people have demonstrated tremendous fortitude, enduring great privation, for political aims.  Will that trend continue or has consumerism taken hold of the population to create a populist backlash to the authoritarianism of the Putin regime?