The news that Russia is set to settle up all old Soviet debts by year-end highlights — we think not unintentionally — one of the glaring differences between how Moscow and Washington operate.

Moscow can't afford to print rubles like there's no tomorrow, so it lives in a reality-based world where pragmatism and agreement-by-consensus guides its domestic and foreign policies.

Solvent and stable

In contrast, Washington relies on confidence in and demand for the dollar, "allowing" it to print as much money as it needs to spend on fun projects such as "rebuilding" Afghanistan, which currently costs $13 million/day, even though the war "ended" three years ago.

So it's not particularly surprising that Russia currently has the lowest national debt in Europe. Meanwhile, in America:

Keep printing dollars. What could possibly go wrong?

As for Russia, its debt-to-GDP ratio accounts to 18.3 percent in 2015. And it's expected to continue to go down. In absolute terms, Russia’s government debt is roughly $147 billion.

Yes, we know. Debt is good! Government spending creates jobs and growth!

Maybe if the money was being used to build roads in Kansas, instead of blowing up weddings in Yemen.

As history has shown time and time again, there will be no way for the United States to dig itself out of this hole of its own creation, until it's far too late.

Let's just hope when they jump off the cliff, they don't bring the whole world down with them.