Communist countries at least could house everyone. They more or less had to, because most of them are too cold in winter for the homeless to survive. Education was generally free and quite good. Etc...
But... my dad was dragged off one day and beaten black and blue by the secret police for engaging in "anti-communist capitalist activities". He was tutoring students after school for a bit of cash.
Meanwhile, in the world's richest third-world country, the United States, people with the wrong skin colour are being dragged out of their homes and thrown into concentration camps in another country. Breaking a leg can bankrupt you.
You hear stories of NK refugees hating their new life in SK because it's too competitive and they can't keep up with the constant go-go-go business culture.
I also saw smuggled(!) videos of children in NK picking up individual grains of rice that fell in between the railway tracks at the local shunting yard. So you know... hustle culture, or that.
I personally remember driving to a shopping centre and standing in line outside right before it opened so my Mom could buy me rain boots. Her friend that worked there had called her at 6am telling her to hurry because they had them in stock for the first (and only) time that year.
But... on my recent holiday to the US I was shocked to see how tense police officers looked compared to anywhere else in the world. I witnessed a traffic accident, and the cops that turned up looked like they were ready to draw their weapons and start blasting at any second. They were all kitted out in body armour and had their hands on their weapons at all times. Scanning the crowd non-stop. Where I live, cops are friendly and will high-five my kid and pose for selfies. The US feels more like an outdoor prison to me.
Traffic stops are one of the most high risk situations police officers are involved in. I imagine traffic accidents are up there with it. The US also has a road rage problem topped off by never knowing who is armed or who keeps a revolver in the glove box
Traffic stops in the United States are dangerous for them.
In Australia, they're more likely to be killed during a traffic stop because they're hit by cars than getting shot at.
But think about it… according to our media russia was out of weapons and food 3 years ago. How did ukraine not invade moscow if the russians are all dead?
Could it be… because it was propaganda?
[Citation needed]
> Trump said: "Christians, get out and vote, just this time. "You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians."
Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-tells-christians-they...
And the video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Y7b4r1FIG-A
Policy questions of all sorts, we can all discuss: that's called democracy.
But when someone promises to end your participation, you have surrendered all agency to them which has never worked out well in history.
Rejecting people who look at reality with people who tell the leader what they want to hear is a big part of why Russia and North Korea are so less successful than the US, yeah. I don’t think that’s dubious, or even uncertain.
[1] https://www.brainbok.com/guide/pm-study-notes/rule-of-seven-...
The part of "small govt." is reaching into all sorts of businesses and directing them what to do and what not to do. (Amazon, Google, Apple, even the Smithsonian !)
Trump has directed Apple to start producing equipment in America multiple times.
Trump has directed Google to refine its search results and AI results in line with Party views.
Edit : Trump also directed Apple and Google to stop hiring Indians.
Like, how do you even manage to meet that goal if the country don't have a state-owned airline? It feels for me, Trump thinks every country is either a dictatorship or a state capitalism.
* https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/turkeys-erdogan-fires-...
* https://archive.is/https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/tur...
Erdogan had also fired the Central Bank Chief when he refused to lower the interest rates: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48891658
and then kept firing: https://www.reuters.com/article/world/middle-east/turkeys-er...
https://www.reuters.com/article/business/the-last-straw-why-...
His stated aversion to interest rates is religious and it causes economic divide.
IMO, US might be on the same path albeit slower. This might become a revolving door if the calculation/facts from other sources continues to be bad. And once Jerome Powell leaves interest rates cuts will be pushed through making things worse.
Don't fire people for reporting data though.
> downturn of some sort this year no matter what the government did anyway just based off the debt term structure
But I guess not far from the mental gymnastic of "this is not happening due to flip flopping on tariffs".
I am sure as things get worse many people will use this same excuse of "But I didn't know he was going to do this" excuse to distance themselves for the mess which is coming.
For now yay! for massaged data going forward.
> Gathering official economic data is a huge process in the best of times. But a bunch of different things have now combined to make that process even harder. People aren't responding to surveys like they used to. Survey responses have also become a lot more divided along political lines. And at the same time, the Trump administration wants to cut back on government spending, and the worry is that fewer official resources will make tracking the US economy even harder for statistical departments that were already stretched. Bill Beach was commissioner of labor statistics and head of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics during Trump's first presidency and also during President Biden's. On this episode, we talk to him about the importance of official data and why the rails for economic data are deteriorating so quickly.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfgpqVixeIw
* https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-of-americas-most-...
* https://archive.is/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2...
William ("Bill") Beach was the head of the BLS of the before the just-fired head; he was Trump-appointed and Heritage Foundation fellow, and not a fan of the firing:
> The totally groundless firing of Dr. Erika McEntarfer, my successor as Commissioner of Labor Statistics at BLS, sets a dangerous precedent and undermines the statistical mission of the Bureau. For a full statement opposing this move, read: https://www.friendsofbls.org/updates/2025/8/1/statement-on-c...
* https://twitter.com/BeachWW453/status/1951376029060055506#m
Also, from 2023, "Houston, We Have a Data Problem":
> The concerns are laid bare in a recently published report from the National Academy of Sciences. It includes a table showing that response rates to household surveys for basic information such as the current population survey (CPS) undertaken by the Census Bureau and the housing portion of CPI (a crucial input for overall inflation) have drifted down dramatically in recent years. The housing survey, for instance, used to get responses from about two-thirds of those surveyed. It now gets just half.
* https://archive.is/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletter...
Immediately attempts to manipulate them for political purposes.
> An example of what could happen if you took your job too seriously, rather than successfully second-guessing what the Communist Party wanted, is provided by the Soviet census of 1937. As the returns came in, it became clear that they would show a population of about 162 million, far less than the 180 million Stalin had anticipated and indeed below the figure of 168 million that Stalin himself announced in 1934. The 1937 census was the first conducted since 1926, and therefore the first one that followed the mass famines and purges of the early 1930s. The accurate population numbers reflected this. Stalin's response was to have those who organized the census arrested and sent to Siberia or shot. He ordered another census, which took place in 1939. This time the organizers got it right; they found that the population was actually 171 million.
gnabgib•9h ago
(23 points, 12 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44760951
r721•59m ago