The Soviet Union fell apart

[edhopper]

because they over-spent on the Military while ignoring their domestic welfare. And it was incredibly corrupt, acting to benefit only those at the top.
Sounds like Trump's budget, doesn't it?

[DetlefK]

1. The problem with Communism is that it's a wasteful way to run an economy.

In capitalism, the needs of producers and consumers balance themselves.

In Communism, all the balancing is on you. You have to make a plan. This means over- and under-production, no incentives to quality because there is no competing company...

[edhopper]

2. True

and I was being simplistic.

But what we have now is not market capitalism, but a system that is completely tilted toward the elite rich. And Trump's plan is to take all restrictions off the Rich and Corporations, while making the middle class and poor pay everything.

[BSdetect]

5. Heard of monopoly capitalism?

[DetlefK]

7. Heard of "Social Market Economy?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy

[Igel]

3. The Soviet Union fell apart for a lot of reasons.

No one reason was the cause.

The USSR ...

Over-spent on military.

Underspent on agriculture, so that they still needed manual work brigades to head to the boonies to harvest potatoes.

Was incredibly inefficient. There was no work ethic. Productivity was dead.

Imposed a large bureaucracy that regulated everything and slowed everything down, while making sure its own apparatchiki were well taken care of. The "civil servants" became feudal lords, with their own system of health care and stores.

Prioritized things by command, not by demand; not only did they spend money on the military, but the military got the best of everything (right after the apparatchiki). Planning for domestic consumption was back-grounded.

Dismembered the GULag system. Those who went home told horror stories. Moreover, Gaidar's analysis that a lot of the bump in GDP was because of forced GULag labor is intriguing; as the GULag system shrank, forced labor shrank, and the Soviet economy went shaky. In other words, the USSR was based largely on slave labor, but political, not racial, slavery.

Suppressed innovation. The turmoil hit when it did because of the balance of trade with international resources. The USSR imported oil. Things were okay in the late '70s and early '80s because of high oil prices. In '86 oil prices fell off a cliff. Glasnost and perestroika were in the works, but were urgent at that point. In the very early '90s oil prices dipped lower.

Asked people to tolerate poor conditions because in the future they'd be fixed; that could be understood in the '30s, justified in the '50s, but by the '70s and '80s there was no way to explain it.

Blatantly lied to their populations about the economy and technology.

Relied on nationalism to hold the country together, while promoting Russian as the dominant everything. The "lesser peoples" got pissed off, esp. since they hadn't agreed to be conquered and made part of the empire. At the same time, beginning in the late '70s and early '80s, there was affirmative action. By the mid '80s the saying was that an "Ivan couldn't get a decent job" as factories and offices needed to make sure that ethnic quotas were met. The USSR's power base lost their position and saw others judged better based on ethnicity even as they were told to be patriotic because they'd "won the war."

Got engaged in a war that news reports said they were winning but which the zinc boys said they weren't, without any reason to be there except to promote the country's position as #1.

Etc. Lots of "etc."

Some of this sounds like Trump's budget. Some sounds distinctly like what he wants to fix. Some fits into neither category. First, facts; then spin.

[KittyWampus]

4. you just had me wonder- the system of peonage that existed in the USA was exposed

and reform began in the early 1900's and 1910's and I wonder if that fits in to the market crash of the 1930's in even a tangental way.

Thanks for your post. It was very interesting and I learned something.

[edhopper]

6. Thanks for yhe post

but this does sound very much like what Trump wants to do here.

[Ruy Lopez]

8. Over the military too, Trump is being stupid

1- in the short run, there is no gain in marginally (+10%) expanding your force when it's already dominant

2- especially when you're not going to use it: the taxes raised to finance a Military you won't use is just a drain on productive investments which would have made your country stronger

3- in the middle term, it's making your country weaker when you already know your country is fated to be overtaken by two more populated countries to whom you're sending a simple message: when you grow, don't forget to spend on your military because I'm an unpredictable loon arming myself even when there's no threat.

All this brings one uncomfortable question: knowing he's unfit for the job, is Trump getting ready to start a war, any war, as the only way to get a decent approval rating?

[edhopper]

9. Look at his budget

and his foreign policy team, mostly Generals.
He so wants a war.
Today, looks like N. Korea is a good candidate.