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Two stories about the Soviet Union before the collapse bear repeating. Both stories occurred around 1984, and impressively refute Prof. Galbraith.

This story appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune (evidently their editors were asleep at the wheel and missed the implications) and I repeat it from memory.

Three wives of professional hockey players were in a supermarket in Canada. One of the wives was a recent defector from the USSR, she had come with her husband, who had also defected from the USSR to play in the NHL. The Russian wife saw all the meat at the meat counter and immediately started grabbing all of it while telling the other two wives to grab some meat, too, because it wouldn't be there tomorrow. The other wives had trouble convincing the Russian wife there would be meat again at the supermarket the next day.

My note: And this would have been the wife of a person who was privileged in the old USSE!!

The other story was told by an actor on the old Arsenio Hall show.

The actor had been to the USSR to work on a film. One item he related about his experience in the USSR was this: The one thing you could count on in the USSR was that nothing would work.

The other problem he had was with McDonald's being introduced to the USSR. He was absolutely appalled that McDonald's was the first introduction to western style capitalism for people in the Soviet Union. However, he was quite surprised, when he arrived in the USSR, at the block long lines at the MacDonald's. And, as the actor said, McDonald's was on the expensive side for the average Russian. Finally, he asked someone in line why they were willing to wait so long and pay so much for MacDonald's.

The answer was somewhat illuminating: "Because it is the only place in Russia where you are assured that when you get to the end of the line, what you've been waiting for will be there."

My note: I forget the name of the actor.