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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)

#251

Post by throwaway290 »

diimdeep wrote: post #238
throwaway290 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

You chose the worst place to get your numbers. Try browsing avito and see if any of the 10000 rub/month flats in city center are available. The numbers are there only to attract you.

But for the record none of the .ru links you gave work for me currently. Does hh even host a representative amount of jobs for cleaning staff, shop salesperson, cooks and other jobs many regular people have? How many people don't have the chance to work for good clean money and get by with gigs or grey salaries? Consider that, double monthly food expense and it may be not 50 percent but not too far. It may be hard to grasp if you happen to be in a muscovite software engineer bubble.

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

#252

Post by Tade0 »

ubermonkey wrote: post #9

I dunno about Yeltsin and the Houston store, but I do know this: I went on a student tour of the USSR as a college student in 1991, arranged through my University (U of Alabama). I was getting a minor in Russian language, and it seemed like a fun trip. It actually got MORE fun because in the run-up to the trip (in spring, 91) there was some dissent in the USSR and many parents wouldn't let their kids go. In order to…

> Then he saw the bananas. He really wanted bananas.

My friend's high school physics teacher had many memorable lines, one of them being:

"Bananas! I saw my first banana when I was already in college!"

My father hosted a few Americans in (back then) communist Poland. To them it was like time travel to some bizarro world bygone era. They really wanted to drive his car, which was also a "classic" tech and design wise.

Anyway all this spilled over to the 90s, making the weirdest things to be considered premium goods, like Vans shoes, vacation in Malta/Greece or McDonald's.

Eventually this all ended and I remember the exact moment I realized it: I saw a somewhat overweight teenager in a mall holding a pizza slice.

Every part of this sight would be out of place in the mid 90s, not to mention the previous system.

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

#253

Post by thriftwy »

avgcorrection wrote: post #233
thriftwy wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure why it is a shorthand. A wide range of countries have monarchy, such as Belguim or Sweden. There are also a lot of piss-poor non-monarchies.

Overall you sound like a person of socialist education who never evaluated their upbringing critically.

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

#254

Post by stjohnswarts »

vl wrote: post #240
xwdv wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some people have bought into the captalism "always bad" trope regurgitated over and over in r/antiwork on reddit. I just tune out when I hear "wage slavery"

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

#255

Post by diimdeep »

throwaway290 wrote: post #251
diimdeep wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

You chose the worst place to get your numbers. Try browsing avito and see if any of the 10000 rub/month flats in city center are available. The numbers are there only to attract you. But for the record none of the .ru links you gave work for me currently. Does hh even host a representative amount of jobs for cleaning staff, shop salesperson, cooks and other jobs many regular people have? How many people don't have th…

How is publicly traded job marketplace company (hh.ru) is the worst place to source salary numbers ? Here is another superjob.ru, yeah Avito you mentioned[0],

Somehow, you argue without even bothering to access websites in question. Are you trolling ?

[0] https://www.avito.ru/all/vakansii/polnyy_den-ASgCAQICAUCQCxS...

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

#256

Post by chupasaurus »

midasuni wrote: post #213
chupasaurus wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In the 1980s the internet was hardly in every home globally either.

The difference is that there was a dozen of scientific institutes and that was it. I.e. there was no Internet connectivity in my city (12th by population in Russia at the time) until 1994.

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

#257

Post by birdymcbird »

Jensson wrote: post #234
muglug wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

-> “Cuban rulers would rather its citizens starve than implement democracy.”

cuban here. please dont pretend america care about democracy. america have interests. when they need new regime they suppress democracy as needed or push for democracy. main idea to get some regime subservient to american economic interest.

why america has so many migrants at border but america do nothing or even talk about what crisis happening in central or south america country? instead they fighting proxy war in ukraine. why? more lucrative and profit opportunity in ukraine. south america not have resources or proxy war opportunity.

and given state of American government..race issues..economic issue..growing gap..unaffordable housing..America last country to dictate how other country should run.

i not favor cuban government, but your post bullshit. you idea that you know more about cuba like you on some pedestal.watch as you infrastructure crumble you homeless and drug population rise

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

#258

Post by hoseja »

ubermonkey wrote: post #9

I dunno about Yeltsin and the Houston store, but I do know this: I went on a student tour of the USSR as a college student in 1991, arranged through my University (U of Alabama). I was getting a minor in Russian language, and it seemed like a fun trip. It actually got MORE fun because in the run-up to the trip (in spring, 91) there was some dissent in the USSR and many parents wouldn't let their kids go. In order to…

Just a couple democratic countries had to be murdered for those cheap cheap bananas.

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

#259

Post by d_theorist »

pavlov wrote: post #207
danielodievich wrote: post #198

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 l…

Now the challenge for us is that we’re still stuck thinking stores full of Chinese junk is the pinnacle of civilization and we’re unable to know any better despite accumulating evidence of planetary destruction.

Please can we stop with this ridiculous exaggeration. It is actually very harmful. There is no evidence of “planetary destruction” or anything like it.

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

#260

Post by pmontra »

Waterluvian wrote: post #249
gnarbarian wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we have a big cultural problem. our current economy is great at optimizing for low cost mass produced items that last 6 months and then get thrown in the dump. a pair of shoes that lasts years isn't as profitable as a pair sold every 6 months. a coat or car that can be repaired is one less customer shopping for a new one. engineers design cars they don't have to work on or repair, and will never drive. in a healthy e…

Lost me at cars. Cars used to be horrible. They’ve never been better.

I'm not sure. I was joking with a friend recently, telling him that he should have asked the seller in the salon for a real car, not his Mercedes that talks and turns on some settings that annoy him and he turns off again and again at every engine start. My mute and semi-dumb Citroen is a better car on that metric.
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