> I don't think this is right. The Soviet economy was quite able to suffocate
> on its own without anyone holding its head in the toilet. There were many
> problems, but among the most important were a concentration on investment in
> heavy industry without making that industry more efficient and productive,
> and an impossible bureaucratic central planning apparatus (*) which took the
> place of market mechanisms in the allocation of resources.
(*) which took the place of democracy: the free flow of information
on which decisionmaking should be made in a planned economy.
The freeest possible market mechanism of victorian Brittain
allowed child labour and unimaginable poverty in the richest
empire of the globe.
...
> Because of the concentration on heavy industry during the Soviet era, no
> tradition of mass producing consumers goods developed.
So how was the millions of domestic appliances produced
for the Eastern block? My mum has a russian fridge aged 20+ years,
my best lightest vac was russian, and the small colour tv wasn't
bad. Most people had these things by the eighties, even in the
small hungarian village where we lived 1983-87. Most of these stuff
was probably not as flash as the western equivalent and there was not
a lot of choice, but they were functional and cheap enough and
available eventually. This is not a defence of the system, just
a correction about a fact I happen to know...
> As a consequence,
> Russia imports a very large proportion of its consumer goods.
Because loans are linked with semi-compulsary imports;
because people are brainwashed that that the good things
are western produced. Because production is grounding to a halt.
In Hungary some industries are bought up by western competitors for
peanuts and than closed down (e.g. paper factories bought up by
austrian companies)
> As well, the fact that a considerable proportion of GNP was devoted to the
> military, that a prolonged war was fought in Afghanistan, and that the
> government had to deal with rebellion in places like Chechnya, did not help.
> Nor do low oil prices, a major source of government revenue.
>
Just to add: guess who will make money from Hungary (and others)
joining Nato. Clue: not the hungarian citizens.
> Ed Weick
>
>
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