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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)

#71

Post by diag »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #41
rumanator wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Medicare is hardly a wealth redistribution scheme. Everybody needs healthcare.

While a fully organized single payer health system is obviously a massive expense, it is still the more financially moderate option compared to what we have today.

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

#73

Post by SamReidHughes »

zelon88 wrote: post #50
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 on…

This is total nonsense. It gets more of its money from states with more profitable companies and high paid employees. Those are individuals, not states, and it’s a measure of how much surplus value they can capture, not production.

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

#74

Post by raincom »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #67
vasilipupkin wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is false. Long term economic problems were there for years and it could have continued to hobble along with those problems for many more years. But cleaning up Chernobyl specifically cost so much money, that dealing with those problems became practically impossible. Soviet Union couldn't just print dollars like US can.

"Soviet Union couldn't just print dollars like US can." Any country can print more currency according to Modern Monetary Theory. Also, from Wikipedia: "The production of Soviet rubles was the responsibility of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise, or Goznak, which was in charge of the printing of and materials production for banknotes and the minting of coins in Moscow and Leningrad. " If you are trying to draw some…

As long as there is a demand for American dollars from the abroad, US can print it. MMT says, exporters swap real assets with US dollars.

Is China/Taiwan/Vietnam interested in exchanging their exports with Zimbabwe currency? Zimbabwe's curry is not in a unique position like US dollar. No one wants Zimbabwe, but every one else wants USD.

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

#75

Post by userulluipeste »

twomoretime wrote: post #6
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…

>Has Russia recovered? Was there anything to recover? Sure they beat everyone to space but the economy wasn't exactly roaring. My family tells me you didn't really have any kind of choice when you lined up to "shop" for groceries, and you had to know someone from the store to get anything good (better meat, rare sweets like jam) before stocks ran out. That's arguably something else to consider in this comparison. Yes…

"even under a collapse we may be closer to ensuring basic survival and even comfort than immediately post collapse Russia"

One of Orlov's points though is that there is a difference in tolerance levels (i.e. Russians were more accustomed to hardships). Thus the question ought to be, even with an assured higher level of comfort compared to the USSR collapse, will people handle well enough a hypothetical US collapse?

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

#76

Post by theandrewbailey »

_7fvc wrote: post #55

The US is a federation of states. It has already fallen apart in some ways in this crisis. Power and decision making are shifting to local states. I think the trend will intensify. The biggest threat to the US is probably secession. That has not happened since the Civil War. Since then, it has become even more unified. It's hard to see how states can leave the Union now. Being able to shift power between local and fe…

In the first 100 years or so, the power in the US was more with states than the federal government. In the past 100 years, there has been an incredible accumulation of federal power. The balance is creeping back the original norm, with a long way to go before secession.

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

#77

Post by routerl »

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…

Portugal absolutely collapsed, due to the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Voltaire wrote about this[1]. The Portuguese Empire couldn't cope with the near total destruction of their capital, and never recovered. During the Napoleonic wars, the emperial court moved to Brazil and, basically, hid. They were a shadow of themselves.

The United Kingdom, similarly, collapsed, under the weight of two world wars. Europe as a whole was devastated, and the whole world started to coalesce around the only remaining global powers.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po%C3%A8me_sur_le_d%C3%A9sas...

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

#78

Post by userulluipeste »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #67
vasilipupkin wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is false. Long term economic problems were there for years and it could have continued to hobble along with those problems for many more years. But cleaning up Chernobyl specifically cost so much money, that dealing with those problems became practically impossible. Soviet Union couldn't just print dollars like US can.

"Soviet Union couldn't just print dollars like US can." Any country can print more currency according to Modern Monetary Theory. Also, from Wikipedia: "The production of Soviet rubles was the responsibility of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise, or Goznak, which was in charge of the printing of and materials production for banknotes and the minting of coins in Moscow and Leningrad. " If you are trying to draw some…

"the USSR currency was not pegged to PMs or baskets of securities"

There were a lot of products with their cost in rubles imprinted directly on them, which I guess was supposed to make that currency value "backed by goods" at one point. (It was fun though, after USSR collapse, to get my hands on a cast iron frying pan with its engraved price of a few rubles, and hear that its actual price jumped orders of magnitude at the end of old ruble's circulation, presumably a consequence of "just print".)

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

#79

Post by munificent »

rplst8 wrote: post #48
munificent wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That was supposed to be the job of the legislative and judicial branches, but the Republican Party has reached a point where they would rather undermine the US than give up power.

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

#80

Post by userulluipeste »

flohofwoe wrote: post #8
vasilipupkin wrote: post #3

yeah, except it's nonsense, Soviet Union was completely unprepared for collapse. It couldn't even survive Chernobyl.

East German here, so I don't know all that much of the details of Soviet society before the collapse (but my guess is that the situation wasn't all that different in all former socialist countries). I would agree that the (East German) state and government was entirely unprepared for its own collapse. But maybe the people were better prepared because they've been living at the brink of collapse for most of their live…

"there was definitely a growing feeling that this couldn't go on for much longer during the 80's"

I heard stories and I'm inclined to believe that it may as well have been just the feeling of later generations. As I understood, people expected things to relapse to previous order since before the WW2, a sentiment shared both by former rich hoping, and by former poor afraid of loosing their benefits. As time passed, all of them gradually accepted things as normal, and the expectation for change was carried on only by following younger generations. I also think that people in North Korea may have had the same feeling for an impending change, especially hearing of USSR collapse, yet that didn't count for much.

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