A thread for Democrats Only
POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
VIEWED: 755368
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Quote:
How much did Putin pay you to shift the blame to Americans? So long as incompetent Yeltsin was in charge, Russia was doomed.
How much do you get paid to act like an idiot? Oh, that's right .... you're fabulously rich, and so of course you would NEVER blame the wealthy or the policies that made you so.
But, unlike you, I have a less corrupt view of the world, and I happen to (a) know quite a but more about economics than you do and (b) pay a lot more attention to world political economics than you do AND (c) I remember, very clearly, the USA media gleefully tooting its horn about how we were going to "reform" the Russian economy.
And fortunately, I'm not the only one who remembers recent history!
Quote:
In the wake of the 1990’s, the future of nascent post-Soviet Russia was in the hands of four groups of reformers, who were entrusted with applying a medicine known as “shock therapy” to a collapsing patient. These “doctors” were
independent foreign advisers,
the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
the US government, and, most importantly,
President Yeltsin’s administration (Aslund 2007a, 2007b).
Only the fourth was an internal group; the other three were external to the country. All four groups were, for the most part, committed to shock therapy. While no one was more invested in the cause than Yeltsin’s administration, the West, with its accumulated capital and experience, could have played a decisive [helpful] role – but it did not....
To understand how the doctors attempted to assist Russia, we must first understand the theoretical model from which they operated. The term “Shock Therapy” was an invention of the media and a modification of Milton Friedman’s phrase “Shock Policy.” Jeffrey Sachs (2000), a professor of economics at Harvard, argues that Ludwig Erhard’s quick liberalization of price controls and government spending cuts in 1947-48 West Germany served as an inspiration for the shock therapy model.[1] Yet shock therapy, as it is now known, was first pioneered in Chile in 1975 by the “Chicago Boys”[2] following Augusto Pinochet’s coup and then in Bolivia in 1985 under Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. Soon after, Eastern European countries followed suit: Poland in 1990, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria in 1991, Russia, Albania, and Estonia in 1992, and finally Latvia in 1993 (Marangos 2004).
Shock therapy is often associated with John Williamson’s Washington Consensus,
http://geohistory.today/russia-shock-therapy/
A lot of AMERICAN names in there, SECOND!
Quote:And YOU can never wrap your brain around the thought that there is something fundamentaly wrong with system the relies on wholesale rape of the many to benefit the few. Because, as they say, the chances of you understanding something when your pocketbook depends on you NOT understanding is minimal. Yeltsin believed in the hype about capitalism, he really thought that it would improve Russia. Unfortunately, he never looked at its victims and understood that that's what Russia was intended to be
Yeltsin could never wrap his brain around the proverb: A fool and his money are soon parted.
Quote:Yes. It would be nice. But you have to realize that Putin did more than just "not screw up", he had to actively undo the damage that had been wrought by the west and by Russia's (at that point) entrenched mob bosses/ oligarchy, who represented a problematic center of power. MUCH LIKE OUR OWN OLIGARCHY AND DEEP STATE.
Putin, not brain damaged like Yeltsin, actually knows what he is doing, which makes all the difference in Russia’s improved fortune. Wouldn’t it be great to have an American President with a brain functioning half as well as Putin’s?
Quote:Meanwhile, western press wrings its hands and cries long and loud a
There are graphs available to show increasing inequality in Russia during the Yeltsin years. You can see that Putin only partially undid what Yeltsin had done when his alcoholism caught up with his brain.
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Ok, I'm going to summarize>
SECOND, like Texas football fans, you have a very reflexive view of politics. You divide the world up into "teams" and then respond to whether "your team" is "winning" or "losing", wasting much time and angst on what is nothing more than entertainment for the masses.
Have you ever considered that MAYBE there's not much difference in teams? That Dems and GOP are fundamentally the same, they have the same goals but just different colored jerseys? That maybe the "games" that we're playing are essentially meaningless? That just because one side is "winning" does not necessarily mean the other side is "losing"? Does Russia's improved economy mean that we're poorer? Isn't there a future where we can BOTH "win"?
*******
When I think about our interests ... and I DO think about our interests, probably quite a lot more than most on this board and certainly more than you, GSTRING and THUGR ... there are only four problems that cause my heart to drop and my stomach to churn, and they are all SELF CREATED.
1) Our petrodollar/ reserve currency status.
2) The size of our dollar-denominated debt (public and private)
3) The weakened and deindustrialized state of our economy.
4) The rampant separation of wealth.
These factors portend collapse, like 2008, but worse. Think Weimar hyperinflation, or Venezuela today. Russia and China aren't causing those problems.
You seem to have a special angst about the wealth gap, but fail to realize that capitalism/ monopolism DEPENDS ON that wealth gap. I think you should think a lot more about what's driving your reflexive responses, and come to understand the flaws in your own ideology.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
As long as you insist that everything is the Republicans'/ Democrats' fault, then you fail to grasp the REAL problem with American politics.
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Pro Russian anti American sig is at it again. I think you upset her G. She posted another book of propaganda. Keep it up buddy.
He sig, Putin sucks.
T 
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Quote:And SECOND's avid support should make anyone with half a brain mistrust the democrats even more.
Oh, that's right .... you're fabulously rich, and so of course you would NEVER blame the wealthy or the policies that made you so.
SECOND is a troll because it constantly misrepresents what people post, fails to address their actual positions, and resorts to personal attacks when its brain isn't working (which is most of the time).
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:Quote:And SECOND's avid support should make anyone with half a brain mistrust the democrats even more.
Oh, that's right .... you're fabulously rich, and so of course you would NEVER blame the wealthy or the policies that made you so.
On the contrary, I think that Second has stated quite a few times that the Rich People and the policies they enact not only are responsible for why he is rich, but also for how he keeps getting richer.
I think the guilt he suffers for having so much while most others don't is the reason he posts what he does and so often contradicts himself here.
He's genuinely convinced himself of an entirely black and white world where Democrats represent everything good and Republicans represent everything bad. A world where if Democrats ever get the super majority that we'd be living in a Utopia where everything is fair for everybody. At the same time he knows that the chances that Democrats would ever have a super majority are next to nil, so he could never possibly be proven wrong because this will never happen.... and on the flip side, he will continue to benefit financially at the same time because he will never be proven right in his beliefs. This allows him to keep living in this fantasy world where it's not really his fault that he's rich. It's somebody else's fault.
This also allows him to shed a little of the guilt he suffers from by virtue signaling all day long to anybody who will listen.
When you catch him dead to rights doing this is when he shows his true colors and admits that he is very happy where he is at in life in respect to all of the rest of us, and that he's glad that we're all stupid so he can reap the benefits of the Evil Republican policies that give him the lifestyle that he enjoys so much.
Remember. It's not Second's fault that he is rich. He has nothing to feel guilty about. He's a Democrat and only votes Democrat. The fault lies squarely on the shoulders of the Evil Republicans and those stupid and/or evil enough to vote for them.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:JewelStaiteFan, you might ask why Trump wants to start a war this weekend with the G7 nations, rather than speculate about Slick Willie and winning the peace after the Cold War was over.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Does it seem ironic that the Libs which whine about Putin now saw no problem with Slick Willie pulling the rug out from under Russia and Yeltsin, right at the most critical time for transforming into a potential bastion of freedom, Democracy, and industrious economy?
All those decades of work by reasonable folk to end The Cold War, only to be squandered by the Perpetrator-in-Chief.
Was there any strategy behind Trump’s behavior at the G7 meeting? Well, it was pretty much exactly what he would have done if he really is Putin’s puppet. Trump yelling at friendly nations about sins they aren’t committing won’t bring back American jobs, but it’s exactly what Putin, who does want to break up the Western alliance, would like to see.
Alternatively, maybe Trump was just acting out because he couldn’t stand having to spend hours with powerful people who will neither flatter him nor bribe him by throwing money at his family businesses.
Trump demanded that the other G7 members remove what he called their "ridiculous and unacceptable" tariffs on U.S. goods – which would be hard for them to do, because their actual tariff rates are very low. The European Union, for example, levies an average tariff of only three percent on US goods. Who says so? The U.S. government’s own guide to exporters.
www.export.gov/article?id=European-union-Import-Tariffs
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:Unfortunately for you, Signym, you are blaming American conmen hired by drunken Boris Yeltsin. You know, Yeltsin could have fired them. He did not have to follow bad advice, just because he paid for it. I could have found Yeltsin some Americans who are real consultants that would not have given him obviously and excruciatingly bad economic advice. (Pawn state owned industries for 10% of what they are worth? What kind of drunk Russian leader would follow through on advice like that?)
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
How much did Putin pay you to shift the blame to Americans? So long as incompetent Yeltsin was in charge, Russia was doomed.
How much do you get paid to act like an idiot? Oh, that's right .... you're fabulously rich, and so of course you would NEVER blame the wealthy or the policies that made you so.
But, unlike you, I have a less corrupt view of the world, and I happen to (a) know quite a but more about economics than you do and (b) pay a lot more attention to world political economics than you do AND (c) I remember, very clearly, the USA media gleefully tooting its horn about how we were going to "reform" the Russian economy.
And fortunately, I'm not the only one who remembers recent history!
Yeltsin has been gone since 1999, and the truth is that Russia, whose GDP is about now, in 2018, the same size as Spain’s and quite a bit smaller than Brazil’s, was always a ringer in what was meant to be a group of major economies called the G8. Russia was brought in for strategic reasons, and Putin got Russia kicked out when he invaded Ukraine.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=RU-ES-BR
Putin has been in charge for 18 years of the largest country in the world. Putin and the Russian people have vast natural resources, and the best they can do is fall behind Spain. The Russians might be slightly below average in competence.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Now watch, kiddos, and see how my last post goes completely ignored.
Methinks I hit the nail on the head.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:Can I tell you a story? You might interpret it as virtue signaling. If you do, you are wrong. It is just a story. While flying across S Vietnam in a helicopter, the Sargent in the next copter was firing at women, children and water buffalo. Buffaloes, being big targets that don’t hunch down, were easy to hit. I was in the perfect position to shoot that Sargent in one door and out the other, blowing him out of the sky. His crew would believe he had fallen out, never knowing! It would have been classy shooting and instant justice like you only see in movies. Instead, I took it to the officers and I got punished, with much drama. After, I did not shoot water buffalo, although if you do not talk about it, you can do it. It was still wrong, since it wastes ammo and the goodwill of the Vietnamese. Other people had the opinion that it is only a buffalo. What’s the big deal? Since then, I’ve learned I can’t fix what is wrong with other people’s "thinking". 6ixStringJack’s and Signym’s, for example. What justice there is comes slowly, if at all. I could speed Justice up but I refuse to play the role of Judge Dredd or River Tam.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Now watch, kiddos, and see how my last post goes completely ignored.
Methinks I hit the nail on the head.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
The following public service announcement is brought to you by common decency.
Hi, I'm Norm. Or Norma. I might be a Republican or Democrat. It doesn't matter. The point is, I'm your next president. Now, I'm far from perfect. Like anyone else, I make mistakes, get frustrated, and sometimes lose my temper. But here's what else I am. I'm nice, civil, serious, thoughtful, idealistic, responsible, honest, coherent. I'm educated, but I'm humble about what I don't know, so I read, listen, prepare. I work hard.
I value kindness. I'm empathic, grateful. I respect all people, but especially those who serve. I'm patriotic, and I cherish all our democratic institutions, particularly our Free Press. I worship a loving God.
Now, I know what you're thinking. I'm too good to be true. But I'm not. I'm what you'd expect from any president. You voted for me in the past and in two short years, you can vote for me again! So don't lose heart, America. Norm is on the way. Thank you. Did I mention I was polite?
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Is this where SECOND derails an entire topic to talk about George Soros? Oh wait, that happened in ANOTHER thread http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=62134.
THIS red herring, also brought to you by SECOND, is Boris Yeltsin!
*****
It seems SECOND that you're entirely incapable of thinking about, let alone discussing, America's interests.
Why is that? ETA ... Were you fooled by someone with a Big Idea once? Did you come to distrust all Big Ideas, or your ability to handle them? Do you think Big Ideas are dangerous and therefore you reduce every discussion to gossip about individuals? ...
******
BTW, I would never vote for Norm/Norma. Anyone who speaks and believes such pablum has mush for brains. How can s/he possibly call if the "free" press when it cost so much money???
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
As long as you insist that everything is the Republicans'/ Democrats' fault, then you fail to grasp the REAL problem with American politics.
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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