© Alexei Nikolsky / AFP - Getty ImagesRussian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin tries to bend a pan as he visits a summer camp on Monday.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused Americans Monday of "living like parasites" on the global economy, noting that Russia owns a large amount of the U.S. debt.
"They are living beyond their means and shifting a part of the weight of their problems to the world economy," Putin told the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi while touring its lakeside summer camp some five hours drive north of Moscow.
"They are living like parasites off the global economy and their monopoly of the dollar," Putin said at the open-air meeting with admiring young Russians in what looked like early campaigning before parliamentary and presidential polls.
President Barack Obama earlier announced a last-ditch deal to cut about $2.4 trillion from the U.S. deficit over a decade , avoid a crushing debt default and stave off the risk that the nation's AAA credit rating would be downgraded.
The deal initially soothed anxieties and led Russian stocks to jump to three-month highs, but jitters remained over the possibility of a credit downgrade.
"Thank God that they had enough common sense and responsibility to make a balanced decision," Putin added.
But the Russian premier, who has often criticized the United States' foreign exchange policy, pointed out that Russia holds a large amount of U.S. bonds and treasuries.
"If over there (in America) there is a systemic malfunction, this will affect everyone," Putin told the young Russians.
"Countries like Russia and China hold a significant part of their reserves in American securities ... There should be other reserve currencies," he added.
U.S.-Russian ties soured during Putin's 2000-2008 presidency but have warmed significantly since his protégé and successor President Dmitry Medvedev responded to Obama's stated desire for a "reset" in bilateral relations.
Casually dressed in khaki trousers and a striped white shirt, Putin flew by helicopter to the tented camp as part of a string of appearances that are being closely watched in the run-up to the elections.
He did not say whether he plans a return to the Kremlin or will stand aside for Medvedev, his partner in Russia's leadership tandem, to run for a second term.
But young people crowding round Putin, caught up in the campaigning spirit created by huge portraits of Putin hung from trees, were not shy about saying who they wanted as president.
"Russia's next president will be small, bald and look like Putin," 17-year-old Ilya Mzokov joked with reporters. Asked why Medvedev was not paying a visit to the summer camp, he said: "Only serious people come here."
Macho image
Youngsters chanted Putin's name and applauded his remarks as he strolled round the camp, where U.S.-style business seminars, extreme sports and political mudslinging were among the topics on offer.
Putin, whose macho image appeals to many Russians, briefly swung himself up the first half of a climbing wall, filmed by a gaggle of state television cameras.
Nashi, which means "Our People," was created by the Kremlin to counter popular dissent after youth activism helped topple a pro-Moscow government in Ukraine's 2005 Orange revolution.
The group has worked to spread a personality cult around Putin and regularly campaigns against Kremlin critics.
Opinion polls show Putin, still widely viewed as the country's paramount leader, retains near 70 percent approval.
But his United Russia party is trying to reverse a slide in popularity before December parliamentary polls, hoping to use a strong showing there to help Putin in the March 2012 presidential vote.
We are in a peculiar position.
People like our culture, but they hate our politics. And there is some accuracy in that perception.
What has actually been driving our aggressive expansion since about the mid-1900s? It is said that our founding fathers recommended a low-key approach to foreign relations. Though others think this should be seen in the context of a new nation that was not yet well developed.
Certainly, the great European centers of expansion made no bones about imposing their will on areas they traded with. The accusation that the US feeds off its less-developed trading partners could as easily have been said about Britain, Spain, Portugal or the Netherlands in their time. Perhaps even of Rome.
So why should anyone expect any different from the US? If you have something good that everyone else wants, isn't it traditional to protect it my attempting to keep your rivals weak? Yet from America the world expected something different. Because we were not founded as an empire, but as a democracy. Obviously, somewhere along the line, someone started convincing us that we should start acting like an empire.
And today, what is the biggest market for the illegal drugs that ruin the lives of so many in the developing countries? What is the biggest market for the electronic gadgets that pollute the lands of Asia and employ so many of their workers in places almost like prison camps? What is the biggest market for the beef that the Amazon forest is being torn down to make pastures for? Or the oil that has been at the center of so many environmental and political catastrophes?
Will we be willing to ease up a bit on the throttle so that the rest of the world has the resources it needs to survive? Or will we, with the help of our friends the international bankers, find ways to depopulate large sections of the planet to eliminate the "competition?"
It's not yet clear to me where this is going. But I would like to somehow make Putin wrong before something happens that takes us all back to the Stone Age. Because I don't think this planet will put up much longer with another imperial power. It's time to try something different.