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

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

#231

Post by cturner »

sudosysgen wrote: post #157
908B64B197 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's like, if you complained about the lack of consumer products in Cuba, how could you discuss that without bringing up the sanctions the US has placed on them for decades? Keep in mind Cuba is free to trade with 192+ countries all around the world. Easy to blame everything on the embargo, harder to take a long hard look at the systemic corruption, incompetence, generalized theft and human rights violations plagui…

This is incorrect. Cuba is under secondary sanctions by the US. Any entity that trades with Cuba is liable under US Federal law to get it's assets seized. Granted it doesn't happen as often as it used to, but it's still the law on the books. Since most countries ask for US dollars in order to trade and that these have to be held by US entities, you're basically guaranteed to have assets that can be seized.

US dollars don't have to be held by US entities. There are US dollars held on balance sheets around the world by non-US entities. During the cold war, the Soviet Union held USD in non-US accounts.

Countries don't ask for US dollars in order to trade. Although it is common for some goods to be priced in US dollars, companies (rather than countries) will price and trade in whatever currency suits them, often with assistance from banks providing foreign exchange services. The banks don't need to be US banks, and goods priced in USD do not need to be paid for in USD if you go through an intermediary, which is common practice.

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

#232

Post by sudosysgen »

refurb wrote: post #183
sudosysgen wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you consider the Chinese to be a shining capitalism, the proportional of people in poverty hasn't been decreased by capitalism.

It’s doesn’t have to be “shining” capitalism to be free market reforms. It’s pretty clear even “state capitalism” leads to wealth and the elimination of abject poverty.

That's actually not what it shows. It shows that the free market focused development model which was popular across the entire rest of the world did not, in aggregate, reduce abject poverty.

> It’s pretty clear even “state capitalism” leads to wealth and the elimination of abject poverty.

What even is the difference between such heavy state capitalism and socialism? Socialist economies existed with various level of market involvement and economic freedom, see Lenin's NEP - was the USSR initially a champion of free market reform?

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

#233

Post by avgcorrection »

thriftwy wrote: post #98
avgcorrection wrote: post #56

The author seems to believe that Yeltsin was a moron who thought that the most advanced capitalist country in history would possibly be comparable to a country that belonged to the Tsar less than one hundred years prior. Well, maybe he was an idiot.

Well the UK belongs to a King to that day, how does it make it any less of a developed country? You seem to greatly downplay the historic Russia.

The Tsar was a shorthand for how undeveloped Russia was.

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

#234

Post by Jensson »

muglug wrote: post #195
mikewarot wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Cuban rulers would rather its citizens starve than implement democracy. They have fake elections to trick their people, each seat has only one candidate selected by the communist party so it is all a sham.

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

#235

Post by thriftwy »

_5yv8 wrote: post #229

It isn’t really useful to compare the Soviet Union in it’s final 1-2 years of total crisis to the USA. You see videos of empty supermarkets, lines and many other problems. But this certainly is not an accurate depiction of normal life during most of the Soviet period. The 70s and early 80s did not have a lot of the problems that arose in 1989.

Soviet Union was rolling downhill starting from 1965, with lines and empty stalls.

"Иван Васильевич меняет профессию[1]" is a 1973 movie and it depicts shortages, scarcity of consumer goods and "having to know people" to get decent service.

1. http://imdb.com/title/tt0070233

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

#236

Post by dmitriid »

_5yv8 wrote: post #229

It isn’t really useful to compare the Soviet Union in it’s final 1-2 years of total crisis to the USA. You see videos of empty supermarkets, lines and many other problems. But this certainly is not an accurate depiction of normal life during most of the Soviet period. The 70s and early 80s did not have a lot of the problems that arose in 1989.

> The 70s and early 80s did not have a lot of the problems that arose in 1989.

In late 1980s the systemic problem became a problem everywhere. However, food stamps were already a thing in some regions in mid-1970s.

And the "sausage trains" were a well-known phenomenon since at least early 70s. This was a term for the trains that people would take to buy stuff in larger cities like Moscow that didn't exist in smaller cities like Ryazan or Tver.

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

#237

Post by WoodenChair »

For those of you who don't have family who escaped from Cold War era Eastern European communism, you should have the added context that this is actually a pretty commonly shared experience—and even something of a trope. My mom and grandparents upon going to a Canadian supermarket for the first time after escaping from communist Czechoslovakia in the late 1960s couldn't believe it. They were used to stores that only sold a few products and eating oranges once a year at Christmas. Of course conditions varied within different eastern bloc countries and even at a local level, but the general thrust of the theme is recurrent.

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

#238

Post by diimdeep »

throwaway290 wrote: post #217
diimdeep wrote: post #197

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 h…

I am from somewhat medium class but not poor background and I know very few people who earn that much, is that advertised as average monthly salary? Maybe they need to check the median? (The first link wouldn't load for me.) Edit: fwiw friend about to receive a degree in economy says 62000 is basically a bullshit number for a single person, and if they are talking families well 5600 is also (it may be enough for one…

You can browse https://stats.hh.ru by yourself, sure salary differs by region and occupation, but it is even much higher for educated or just hard-working people, especially in tech. How is it bullshit, exactly ? (Only way I can think if you compare really low wage gov clerk with high tech worker and then average (50000 + 250000) / 2 = 150000 but it is not the case)

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

#239

Post by Jensson »

sudosysgen wrote: post #153
refurb wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism has been responsible for lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty. Communism, or any other system, can’t make that same claim. Unless you have an alternative, your claims of exploration will fall on deaf ears.

Unless you consider the Chinese to be a shining capitalism, the proportional of people in poverty hasn't been decreased by capitalism.

China is capitalist, they just aren't democratic. They kept the authoritarian regime with sham elections from their communism days but changed everything else into capitalist systems, they are as capitalist as a typical western country today.

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

#240

Post by vl »

xwdv wrote: post #202
Animats wrote: post #193

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.

The only solace I find as Americans crumble into poverty and wage slavery is that there is no real better alternative in the world today. The entire world’s glory days are behind it, every place is getting shitty. Everything is expensive and few people are thriving. The future looks joyless and barely survivable. To me the explanation for why everything got shitty all at once is obvious: the global pandemic “synchron…

By any possible metric people in the world today live better than in any point in history. Sure, last two years created a minor setback, but it will be forgotten in the next few years, when there will be another "everything is good and will grow forever" period in the cycle.
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