Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

beelineblogger.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–378 of 378 posts

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

#371

Post by somethingreen »

gnarbarian wrote: post #360
somethingreen wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of you are missing the point. Soviets didn't have one sort of butter in the way west had its 20. You couldn't go to the store and buy however much of that shitty butter you needed when you needed it. You had to catch it when it's there and get in line before it runs out, or know someone who'd tip you off, or know someone who'd sell you from the back door. And then somewhere else (not where it was produced) they'…

I'm saying that market economies work best when there is real competition AND demand for products that provide better lifetime value and utility. Corporate media drives culture towards positions that benefit it rather than society. The demand part is cultural. Lowering barriers to entry to enable more competition is political. Both are needed to change course for the west.

I don't disagree with what you are saying, I just find it funny that this discussion is happening in context of soviet planned economy, which had no market to speak of, no competition, complete politically moderated indirection between demand and production, and entrepreneurship being outlawed thus no concept of market entry.

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

#372

Post by helloworld11 »

PheonixPharts wrote: post #135
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.

“lifting out of poverty” is defined in terms of consumption. A family living on a farm and providing most of their own needs, living sustainably for generations, is by most definitions “living in poverty” because they consume very little. Now if you strip that family of their land and force them to work in factories their consumption goes way up since they no longer are able to support themselves. That family has now…

Prey tell, how do you live? How would you in practice have your children and other family members live? If you're even moderately well off, very little if nothing stops you from seeking exactly the life you idealize in your comment. Resources for learning all its hard tricks and labors abound (largely due to the very same capitalist-fed internet of commodified information sharing that you disdain). But by all means, decide for hundreds of millions of subsistence farmers that their lives of toil were preferable to the things generations of them strove for despite "having to" consume more.

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

#373

Post by fennecfoxy »

kube-system wrote: post #326
rascul wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tell people this sometimes but the market is so saturated with the cheap junk that people don't often believe me.

I usually use iPhone or MacBooks as examples.

All designed in the US, using manufacturing methods pioneered (for the most part) outside of China?

I mean it was only a short while ago that they were able to manufacture metal balls with enough precision to make ballpoint pens.

Besides the fact that they are known for making jumps and leaps in progress by stealing trade secrets. Just calling it how it is, I don't think they deserve credit for working in this way at all, if it weren't the case then I'd be applauding them.

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

#374

Post by fennecfoxy »

winrid wrote: post #219
pavlov wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't it xenophobic to call it "Chinese junk"? The cheap junk is designed here in the US to be as cheap as possible and break as soon as possible. We did that. Not them. They're just building it.

It took them until 2017 to be able to make a fully homegrown ballpoint pen: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/01/18...

Yes it is Chinese junk if it is junk and manufactured in China - they have created an entirely new economy just for this stuff.

And "xenophobic" is just a nicer way to call someone racist. It was a smart move on China's behalf to produce this junk, they have most of the world's manufacturing.

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

#375

Post by int_19h »

nivenkos wrote: post #269
int_19h wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today, sure. In USSR, no apartment was privately owned, though. You were assigned one "according to your needs" - e.g. when I was a kid, my extended family of 5 (me, my parents, and my mom's parents) had a two-bedroom apartment of 48.5 m^2 total, 27.2 m^2 of which was the two bedrooms. To give an idea of the size, here's the floor layout of that exact series of apartment buildings: https://i.imgur.com/ImxdsUG.jpeg (N…

How old were you though? That was similar in a lot of post-war Europe, e.g. for my grandparents in the UK. The Americans have always lived in abundance and luxury in comparison.

This was late USSR, all the way up to its dissolution and privatization of housing in 1991. I was a small kid at the time, but I don't recall the standard being different depending on age.

The allotment of living space (counted as bedroom area per person) varied depending on the city, and sometimes there was a difference between the nominal and the actual number. In Moscow and Leningrad the designated minimum was around 7 m^2 per person, but in practice applying for a new apartment would be unlikely to succeed if you had more than 5 m^2. In some of the provinces, it could go as low as 3 m^2 per person.

And keep in mind that this is the minimum that entitled you to apply for a new apartment. Which means that you'd be put in a line to wait your turn to actually get one when one is available, say, 10 years later.

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

#376

Post by asveikau »

cpursley wrote: post #180
asveikau wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that the "not decent" cities, or rural areas, are the worst. Any video of Moscow or St Petersburg is not a rebuttal to my statement.

DNS got its start in Siberia and has twice as many locations than Best Buy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_(retail_company) Magnit (grocery chain) in Krasnodar: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnit Cities all over the country as small as 50k have these stores and their competitors where you can buy fresh Mexican avocados and sparkling new Korean appliances. Or, if you don’t want to go in store you can buy any…

The fact that inventory in stores, or delivery apps exist does not help when a lot of people in rural Russia can't afford it, as one of the sibling comments points out.

I've also heard (from Russians) that water access in rural Russia is poor.

I've been to grocery stores in Moscow, btw.

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

#377

Post by cpursley »

asveikau wrote: post #376
cpursley wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DNS got its start in Siberia and has twice as many locations than Best Buy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_(retail_company) Magnit (grocery chain) in Krasnodar: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnit Cities all over the country as small as 50k have these stores and their competitors where you can buy fresh Mexican avocados and sparkling new Korean appliances. Or, if you don’t want to go in store you can buy any…

The fact that inventory in stores, or delivery apps exist does not help when a lot of people in rural Russia can't afford it, as one of the sibling comments points out. I've also heard (from Russians) that water access in rural Russia is poor. I've been to grocery stores in Moscow, btw.

Let me introduce you to “food deserts” in urban areas and poor rural areas in the USA.

Russia is huge, yes - there are some very isolated places with poor people and without some utilities.

There’s also a lot of weekend (part time) dacha summer houses that don’t have full utility hookups.

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

#378

Post by cpursley »

cpursley wrote: post #175
asveikau wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia's poor are still not very well taken care of under capitalism. Witness all the Russian soldiers in Ukraine being impressed with washing machines and stealing them.

Please don’t take everything you read on the internet at face value. Every decently sized city there has at least one DNS, Eldorado and MVideo electronics chain: https://youtu.be/XzNDGN6r1bw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-QSymE3FEY
Post reply on HN