Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#191

Post by culebron21 » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 4:59 AM UTC

alamortsubite wrote: post #12

This sounds apocryphal. I don't doubt Yeltsin was impressed by his visit to the supermarket, but by 1989 the writing was more than on the wall for the demise of the USSR. I imagine it'd be more accurate to say that Yeltsin was excited by the prospects of a transformed economy, seeing the prosperity of the U.S. firsthand, rather than his visit being any kind of tipping point in the Soviet Union's downfall. Anyway, Rob…

From what I saw on video, I bet he was. He might have travelled earlier to other Socialist block countries and saw lots of socialist facade stores there, but a visit to a place for simple folk in the US was much more impressive.

(This is why when I travel, I go not to the center, but to the fringes of the cities, to see how the common people live.)

And I'm sure this contributed to his ideas of how the country should be like.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#192

Post by actinium226 » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 5:04 AM UTC

zmgsabst wrote: post #140

actinium226 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if this is a troll or a bot but I'll take the question seriously and answer it seriously. After all, this did occur to me at the time. What convinced me that I'm not falling for Western propaganda? What it came down to was the following argument, and it has to be an argument and not a soundbite because in order to get beneath the propaganda we have to go deep. - Many of Russia's claims against Ukraine are ei…

> while I don't know about Ukraine intentionally shelling civilians, I can imagine that at least there were civilians killed as a result of Ukrainian fire in that area since 2014 Ukraine has intentionally shelled urban centers for a decade — and you think Russia is wrong to protect ethnic Russians from that? > Russia did not take steps to de-escalate the conflict. There were so many things Russia could have done if i…

So to protect the people of Donbas, Russia fires missiles at Kiev, Kherson, Odessa, Lvov? To protect those people it launches an invasion and calls on the Ukrainian army to overthrow its government? To protect those people it annexes Kherson?

To protect those people it tries to decimate the energy infrastructure of Ukraine so that people will freeze in the winter and beg their government to stop fighting?

Do you honestly believe that Putin actually has the best interests of the people of Donbas at heart? Do you really think that's what this is about? When Russian journalists get murdered he shows no compassion. He doesn't give a fuck about the people of Donbas, he doesn't even give a fuck about his own people.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#193

Post by Animats » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 5:09 AM UTC

Ah, the glory days of America. Yesterday, the local market was out of eggs and bananas. There were long lines at too few staffed checkouts. There's a homeless encampment in the mall's parking area. This is in Silicon Valley.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#194

Post by kragen » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 5:13 AM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #151

aeternum wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you explain the success of the capitalist zones in China relative to the rest of the country with this worldview that the benefits of capitalism must come from exploiting others?

This one in particular specifically required exploitation, though. It's an avered historical fact.

certainly in a marxist analysis wage-laboring banana pickers are being exploited because they're alienated from the fruits of their labor (which are in this case literal fruits)

nevertheless, 01992 was a long time after democracy was restored in honduras in 01981 and the civil war began in guatemala in 01960, and bananas are still cheap today, including here in argentina, so evidently cheap bananas don't require the particular much more severe kind of exploitation the term 'banana republic' was invented to describe

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#195

Post by muglug » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 5:14 AM UTC

mikewarot wrote: post #184

shagie wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a YouTube channel of a Cuban immigrant visiting some American commercial institutions for the first time... Supermarket - https://youtu.be/aBA41QgIty8 Costco - https://youtu.be/UhzQCeKlFDo Texas Roadhouse - https://youtu.be/xRtitCJv4cc Home Depot - https://youtu.be/TLsscvpsH8E

The supermarket was enough for me... what a night and day difference. We have so much, we take it for granted.

We also deny it all, by law, to Cuba: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_...

The USA's stated goal is regime change. It’s willing to make life worse for Cubans to achieve that goal.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#196

Post by chupasaurus » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 5:22 AM UTC

ubermonkey wrote: post #46

inanutshellus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn, that was a good read. Thanks for sharing. It's rare to reevaluate ourselves and to see ourselves in a new light, and it sounds like you got a solid, grounded experience that has since anchored your perspective towards one of appreciation for what you/we have. Pretty cool gift.

Thanks, man. The older I get the more astounded I am that our friendship with Andrei and Volodya happened at all, and the more regret I have that none of us retained any way to contact each other later. It was 1991. I was the only one of us to have an email address at the time.

Outside of academics [jk: and KGB] no one in USSR had an access to the Internet.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#197

Post by diimdeep » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 5:23 AM UTC

The first part of the article I can relate to, but how it tied to the conclusion and this: “the average Russian spends about 50% of their income on food.” — is utter nonsense.

Here is on the napkin calculation of grocery basket to salary from retail and service sources[0] for central region:

5600 ₽ * 100 / 62000 ₽ => 9,0323 %

[0] MOEX:FIVE https://www.x5.ru/ru/PublishingImages/Pages/Media/News/Index...

[1] MOEX:HHR https://stats.hh.ru/central_federal_district

And here is the 2022 state of supermarkets in Russia:

[2] Typical near apartment supermarket, only of this retail chain there is, 18300 of these in country https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTy04V1bTDs

[3] Hypermarket https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kG9yfCwG_s

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#198

Post by danielodievich » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 5:28 AM UTC

Few years into our emigration to USA, my family brought my grandfather over to USA. He was a blue collar worker, electrician at the cement factory, entering that profession right after the war, which he spent under the occupation and mostly I think as a shepherd for cows and pigs in what is now Belarus. He has built several houses in his life and was always incredibly handy with tools. We took him to Home Depot. He looked around, stood silently for a while, and then cried. His words were "we have wasted so much our lives". Trading for nails and building materials, scrounging and scratching out a living, while the country spent all the money on weapons (currently being burned out in Ukraine, and good riddance)

As my father told my then girlfriend and now wife, Soviet Union was okay for us growing up there because we didn't know any better.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#199

Post by cat_plus_plus » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 5:34 AM UTC

Gorbachev's take was "let's think it through and hear all opinions and then decide what should be done about long term future of USSR". Yelsin dropped "let's think it through". Although privatisation of state enterprise by distributing vouchers to all citizens has merit on paper, one must ensure that population is educated about realistic ups and downs of stocks and is given some basic security to make long term rational decisions. Putin dropped "hear all opinions" The rest is history. West should have bailed our Russia through some equivalent of Marshall plan to avoid present day situation.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#200

Post by chefandy » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 5:35 AM UTC

alamortsubite wrote: post #12

This sounds apocryphal. I don't doubt Yeltsin was impressed by his visit to the supermarket, but by 1989 the writing was more than on the wall for the demise of the USSR. I imagine it'd be more accurate to say that Yeltsin was excited by the prospects of a transformed economy, seeing the prosperity of the U.S. firsthand, rather than his visit being any kind of tipping point in the Soviet Union's downfall. Anyway, Rob…

Here's nearly the same exact story in a 1955 American anti-communist propaganda piece. Start at 3:20

https://archive.org/details/0038_Americas_Distribution_of_We...

I have no doubt this happened, but my gut says the US govt set this up to help him make the transition look like a principled decision rather than an outright loss. I'm sure the CIA was more than happy to help him with PR side of things.