re: #386 HappyWarrior

Wasn’t our consumer economy a big reason why the West by and large was so appealing to so many people who emigrated from the Communist bloc? I mean democratic rights aside, I’d say that was a big reason. A strong consumer economy is a strong economy, period.

Yep, which is what ultimately brought down the USSR. They had spent decades shoveling billions yearly into defense spending, while the average Soviet had no access to more than the most basic of modern amenities. When the boys in the Kremlin started to notice that they were losing the ideological war due to the West’s wealth of consumer goods, they tried to match it by investing in such goods for the common man.

A decade later, the wall came tumblin’ down.