While I agree economics are downstream of the politics here, the "workshop ego" read isn't that good. Failure to grow the USSR's consumer sector is much more robustly related to society-wide paranoia about keeping consistent military parity with the perceived threat of NATO. Fear more than pride.

The missing concept here seems to be that proportionality is a key component of effective response. If you frame $15 Taco Bell being as bad as the Great Recession (or bad enough that the distinctions aren't worth a highlight), your policy response to that $15 is very likely going to be insane.

Creedence Deadmarsh Revival?

There was always going to be a rebound from the population explosion of the 20th century, but we have made it ten zillion times worse at the worst possible time by not forcing gender equality down everyone's throats by like 1930.

My advice to Russian "dissidents" is to cite Gandalf the White:

"That we should wish to cast him down and have *no one* in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind. That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not yet entered into his darkest dream."

To be clearer, it's treated as true omni-potence by orthodox theologians. The definition and bounds of potence are debated, not that God has less than an omni- amount. To get theologians who question or modify the omni- bit, you generally have to go outside orthodoxy to places like process theology.