The article consists of two parts. It is pointed out that, although modeling as a very important direction of economic studies has been intensively developed, forecasting of the world economy is still at best an art, than a science, because in modern economics, based more on balanced (equilibrium) rather than on unbalanced systems (disequilibrium), crises and bifurcations are poorly identified. Nevertheless, the author in his middle-term prognosis, based on a model, taking into account a series of more or less stable and inertial characteristics, has made an attempt of a forecast of economic growth of East, West and Russia for the nearest decade. The second part of the article contains a critical analysis of a very interesting but at the same time provocative book of two Russian scholars Alexander Akimov and Alexander Yakovlev, who for the first time provided scenarios of the development of the world community during the whole 21 <sup>st</sup> century, forecasted a series of demographic and resource characteristics on the basis of model computations; and analyzed an experience of efficient reforms as a means of realizing accelerated modernization.