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Fan27: A comparison of the USA to the British Empire makes more sense. I am not saying that the US does not have problems and are best days are probably behind us. All democracies eventually fail. Hopefully this time, it will be different.
As for the Soviet Union having the 2nd largest economy until the late eighties, what are you basing that conclusion on? Phony economic data from the Kremlin? Their economy sucked. I am sure that would have been apparent from going into the homes of 99.5 % of the Russians.
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South America: In September 2002 I wrote an article that was published in various newspapers and magazine âCountdown to Armageddonâ â quoting from that article:
The Soviet Union Collapse
In the summer of 1986 I was present at a dinner party in my mother's house, and she had about twelve guests at that diner. Among their friends, who were present that evening, there were two couples who came to the United States from Rumania, and they had been living in the U.S. since the early 1970's.
Sometime during the evening the conversation turned to politics and economics. Then I told the people at the diner table that from all the information I had been reading about the Soviet Union for a while, I had come to the conclusion that there was a very good probability that the Soviet Union was in the process of going broke.
Remember this was in 1986, Ronald Reagan was telling everyone about the potential dangers and threats from the Soviet Evil Empire. Our friend from Rumania told me in an emphatic voice "Fifty years from now the Soviets still will be one of the major powers in the world. I lived under Soviet rule, and I know how powerful they are."
I never forgot that evening because I became the joke of that dinner. I was the only person in the world to believe that the Soviet Union was going bankrupt. That evening, everyone had a good laugh at my expense. They thought I was out of my mindâthe Soviet Union going broke, what a silly idea. Where does this guy get these crazy ideas?
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989-1990 nobody was laughing at me any longer. About a month ago I went to a party to commemorate the 50th wedding anniversary of that Rumanian friend. I reminded him of that party in 1986. He told me that he still can't believe to this day what happened to the Soviet Union. The Soviets had made such a big impression on him that after all these years, he still is in shock from the Soviet Union's demise.
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SouthAmerica: I donât know how old you are, but in 1986 and until 1990 most of the world believed that the Soviet Union had a strong economy â the Soviet Union used to be considered a superpower.
If Americans were not afraid of the Soviets â then why the US government mortgaged the future of the country fighting wars in Vietnam, and a massive military spending since the Reagan years?
The Russians still have today the 20,000 nuclear weapons from the Soviet Unionâs days, but after the Soviet economic collapsed the Soviet economy imploded â Today the Russian economy it is just a shadow of what the old Soviet economy used to be.
Today, the US is putting all its eggs in one basket â military spending â tomorrow after the American economyâs implosion you will have a basket case with lots of the mother of all bombs, plus a lot of nuclear weapons â and so what?
The Chinese and the Europeans will have the infrastructure, and the economic capabilities of the future â Americans will still think that they are the rulers of the world in the same way that the British still living in the past and to this day they think that they are one of the rulers of the world â when in reality they are not even the rulers of Europe today.
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