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Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

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Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#41

Post by Der_Einzige »

rumanator wrote: post #37
hash872 wrote: post #23

I dunno, seems a little overly dramatic. Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded- Britain, Spain, Portugal, etc. This seems much more likely, especially as budget issues prevent the US from deploying the same overwhelming military power all over the globe. America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you- when push comes to…

> America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you Do you have a source that supports your statement?

It's common knowledge. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid alone account for more than half of the total federal budget (before covid)

Progressives will tell you that these are expensive programs. Progressive wants to significantly cut the military, and replace medicare/medicaid with a single-payer universal system which would be far cheaper. They also want higher taxes to help fund these programs and redistribute wealth from the wealthy to the poor.

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#43

Post by nopriorarrests »

Spooky23 wrote: post #30
nopriorarrests wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia totally recovered by any metric you can pick, from household income to average life expectancy. Heck, moscow in 80's looked like dumpster fire. Now it looks like a proper european capital city. EDIT: to prove my point, russian life expectancy from fed -- https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=qTgj

Russia isn't the Soviet Union. And Moscow isn't the provinces. I'm not dumping on Russia, but it's easy to look at the shiny place and forget about the other parts. If you were a time traveller from 1985, NYC looks like a magical fairy-land (at least on the surface). But Syracuse, NY or Utica, NY... not so much.

Well yes. USSR had plenty of different -stans included, they are independent countries now. They are getting back to middle ages since they got independance 30 years ago, thats true.

But you can take stats for russia proper from soviet times and compare it to 2019. Hell, you can take stats from 1993 when russia was not USSR already but was still collapsing.

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#44

Post by eel »

rumanator wrote: post #37
hash872 wrote: post #23

I dunno, seems a little overly dramatic. Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded- Britain, Spain, Portugal, etc. This seems much more likely, especially as budget issues prevent the US from deploying the same overwhelming military power all over the globe. America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you- when push comes to…

> America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you Do you have a source that supports your statement?

The raw data can be gathered from congress.gov, but here's a summary graphic for 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/...

It depends on your definitions of entitlements and military, but for example, social security spending was at $1.0 trillion compared to $676 billion for defense.

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#45

Post by humaniania »

nopriorarrests wrote: post #16
Hokusai wrote: post #4

Without agreeing with many points, the main thesis is true but just for one point: XXI century economies are less resilient to isolation than in previous centuries. We live in a more complex society and countries need each other more than before. Communication is cheap, transport is cheap so it makes sense to rely on other for your own need. So, this lack of preparedness is true for USA, but also for many countries i…

Russia totally recovered by any metric you can pick, from household income to average life expectancy. Heck, moscow in 80's looked like dumpster fire. Now it looks like a proper european capital city. EDIT: to prove my point, russian life expectancy from fed -- https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=qTgj

Freedom? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#46

Post by hash872 »

rumanator wrote: post #37
hash872 wrote: post #23

I dunno, seems a little overly dramatic. Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded- Britain, Spain, Portugal, etc. This seems much more likely, especially as budget issues prevent the US from deploying the same overwhelming military power all over the globe. America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you- when push comes to…

> America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you Do you have a source that supports your statement?

If this helps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#M...

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#47

Post by dodobirdlord »

traes wrote: post #28
hash872 wrote: post #23

I dunno, seems a little overly dramatic. Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded- Britain, Spain, Portugal, etc. This seems much more likely, especially as budget issues prevent the US from deploying the same overwhelming military power all over the globe. America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you- when push comes to…

> Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded- Rome?

The decline and fall of the Roman Empire (the western half) took centuries. The eastern half of the empire took an additional thousand years or so to follow a similar trajectory.

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#48

Post by rplst8 »

munificent wrote: post #39
hash872 wrote: post #23

I dunno, seems a little overly dramatic. Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded- Britain, Spain, Portugal, etc. This seems much more likely, especially as budget issues prevent the US from deploying the same overwhelming military power all over the globe. America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you- when push comes to…

> Even in an emergency, we'd just see power shift to local state leaders. That's exactly what we're seeing right now with COVID-19. Since Trump and his troop of baboons have done nothing but throw their own poop around, state governors have stepped up to provide executive leadership. The US has never looked more like a union of independent states to me than it has in the past couple of months.

In some ways, this could be considered beneficial. There are multiple layers to our government and can be a check on each others' power.

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#49

Post by pfraze »

zozbot234 wrote: post #31
hash872 wrote: post #23

I dunno, seems a little overly dramatic. Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded- Britain, Spain, Portugal, etc. This seems much more likely, especially as budget issues prevent the US from deploying the same overwhelming military power all over the globe. America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you- when push comes to…

Our countries may not be authoritarian but they're certainly rigid in the sense of having a huge amount of accumulated "technical debt" in their social organization, that by definition is simply not amenable to gradual change. A collapse of some sort is then the only feasible form of restructuring, and is a natural consequence of such circumstances especially given outside stressors. So I would definitely not put it…

I do agree that the US is rigid in its thinking. We accumulated a lot of wealth in the mid-20th century and a lot of national policy debates are around how that wealth is distributed rather than about undertaking new national ventures to bring in significant new wealth. It's understandable to a degree - we have a lot to risk by taking big national projects - but it feeds into our distribution problems because we want to be capitalist but we don't have enough new frontiers for capitalism to create opportunities for the younger generations.

I'd argue we're in a preservative/cost-cutting mindset rather than a generative/competitive mindset, which can be seen reflected in anti-trust policies. The philosophy has been to focus anti-trust around consumer benefit (eg lower prices) rather than to ensure competitive markets. We're more concerned with consumers' purchasing power than producers' opportunities.

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#50

Post by zelon88 »

hash872 wrote: post #23

I dunno, seems a little overly dramatic. Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded- Britain, Spain, Portugal, etc. This seems much more likely, especially as budget issues prevent the US from deploying the same overwhelming military power all over the globe. America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you- when push comes to…

> Plus the US has one advantage that previous stable empires didn't have- federalism, a decentralized system. Even in an emergency, we'd just see power shift to local state leaders.

The fed gets it's money from GDP producing states. There are far more GDP draining states the further inland you go. If those states don't get federal funds, they will not be able to have a functioning judicial branch which is the only one that really matters during such conditions.

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