Reply #14: or, of course, [View All]

[northzax]

you could look at the same neighborhoods of Warsaw, Krakow, Budapest, Prague, Kiev, St. Petersburg, Ulan Baatar, Berlin, and many other places, all of whom are better than 20 years ago. it's a trade off, isn't it? the states that did the supporting do better without the chains, the ones that were held together with cash and duct tape do worse.

I notice that the three cities you picked were in the most repressive of the Eastern States, the ones held together with violence, intimidation and inflows of cash from outside. of course they failed once the money and guns vanished, it was the only reason they existed in the first place. Dry up the money, and you get nothing left. the system that existed in the past wasn't a system, it was pure charity from the outside in exchange for political power.

so again, those nations weren't shattered, they weren't nations to begin with. Poland, the Czech Republic, the former East Germany, Hungary, they're all doing fine after your 'shock therapy'