
The USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US (2006) - wallflower
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2006-12-04/closing-collapse-gap-ussr-was-better-prepared-collapse-us
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cinquemb
I think this gets at the core of what we see going on today and will continue
to see:

"Just look around you, and you will see boondoggles sprouting up everywhere,
in every field of endeavor: we have military boondoggles like Iraq, financial
boondoggles like the doomed retirement system, medical boondoggles like
private health insurance, legal boondoggles like the intellectual property
system. The combined weight of all these boondoggles is slowly but surely
pushing us all down. "

And then when I read this:

"I want to make a boondoggle that runs on hydrogen" – by all means encourage
him! It's not as good as a boondoggle that burns money directly, but it's a
step in the right direction."

I couldn't help think of that we'll come out this all right if we have the
ingenuity to create boondoggles without realizing by simply adapting to the
larger movements of the economic system.

P.S. who wants to help me with my boondoggle to get the name, location, and
place of employment of people by simply visiting any webpage? I already have
an mvp! :P

~~~
BecauseWeCan
I thought that already existed, as Facebook Likes boondoggles.

~~~
cinquemb
True, but my boondoggle doesn't use Facebook ;)

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userulluipeste
"Certain Soviet state enterprises were basically states within states. They
controlled what amounted to an entire economic system, and could go on even
without the larger economy." (explanation for slide 25)

No, they didn't! The planned economy of Soviet Union also planned an
intentional dependency among enterprises over the most of the territory. After
the collapse, especially after republics' separation, lots of mammoth
industrial compounds got stranded, deprived of much of the previous supply and
demand and just rooted or struggled for a while on state support bankrupting
it in the end.

