Ronald Reagan
internal cycles causing an economic vortex where the intake was greater than the outlay
Uhhhh - Cause Communism doesn’t work?
Too many guns, not enough butter.
It was God’s will....He used Ronaldus Magnus......
Victory by Peter Schweitzer
On the Brink by Jay Winik
2 letters - B2.
Once upon a Christmas Eve in 1991, . . .
This is strictly my opioion (couldn’t resist). RR got the best intel he could - he was surrounded by the smartest cold warriors and new conservative patriots.
They determined we could sweat the Soviets in a game of attrition.
Reagan called their bluff.
For one thing, you could be arrested
and I mean arrested
for “making a profit” on something.
Also some of the best jobs were for “snitches” for people to turn in their neighbor for being politically incorrect against Marxist Leninism.
Yes, the term “politically incorrect” originated with Stalin. It was a CRIME.
So you were spied on for money by your neighbors and you had no way of making a living, totally at the mercy of the state. Plus the USSR kept on a “war footing” with the West, so it was a survival during wartime mentality.
Coming soon to the USSA.
They had rulers who hated the free enterprise system, nationalized their industries, and punished anyone who tried to make an honest living.
Oh, wait ... I’m confusing it with the United States of America under Barack Hussein Obama.
Yuri Bezmenov (youtube) provides some insight to this as well. The subversive methods of the KGB eventually came back to bite them in the ass.
Don’t have any sources anymore but I do remember an analysis of their central planning problems. It seems as though they couln’t figure out how much anything cost. They set prices by extrapolating from prices they paid for Western goods. The price of electricity was always a mystery.
Sorry I can’t remember where I would have read it but stuck in my mind because I was just discovering the Austrians & was very excited about this insight. Sometime in the early 80’s.
Corruption in commie govt.and the money they spent in Vietnam.
In addition to some of the causes already listed there was a vital transmission belt which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The KGB.
The KGB was one of the few institutions to have the real numbers regarding the Soviet decline and inability to compete. Seeing no future with communist policy, they completely abandoned the Politburo and the Party.
With an unpaid army remaining in barracks, and the KGB disloyal, the Soviet government had no teeth. This is why the dissolution of the USSR was -relatively- bloodless.
It will be interesting to see what happens when and if the USA truly does become bankrupt, and even the D.C. IOUs are refused.
Overspending on Defense to keep up with the Joneses, think the Good Ole U.S. of A.
Inability to financially support satellite states, Poland, East Germany, Hungary, etc.
Over reaching on expansion and military ventures, think Crapganistan.
Failure to open new markets for oil, again think Crapganistan.
Marginalized on the world stage, think Reagan, The Pope, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Margaret Thatcher.
The USSR failed for the same reason any planned economy eventually fails: you need robust markets where people can buy and sell freely for price to function as a register of value.
Also, the USSR had no concept of bankruptcy. So non-performing firms could persist forever, destroying value, with no market incentives to innovate their operations.
“We pretend to work; they pretend to pay us”
