🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1hfqr6INN387@mirror.digex.com> prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes:
>Consider that the russians/CIS/USSR  built a major space program with
>the GNP the size of France.   And by the Way,  unlike the germans, or chinese
>i dont believe the russians have ever been charged with using slave
>labor.  Now the russians had a strange command economy,  but things still
>cost, but there were major problems in distribution.  the russian/SU
>economy was sorta like massachusetts meets new york via sweden.
>
>high taxes,  severe rent control and social provision of major services.
>
>SUre,  they didnt pay their scientists what we paid them here,  but they
>provided them with housing, medicine, etc.   Also,  the motivation of most
>russian space workers was so great,  that they didn't mind the bad conditions.
>
>the problems within the russian system, were of productivity,  design cycle,
>and provision of consumer goods.
>
>The chinese use slave labor,  and then sell it over here.  the russians
>paid their workers poorly,  and the workers pretended to work.
>
>the gulags were not used as factories to my knowledge.

I agree with all of this. My point was that all those social services,
which in our system are paid out of worker salaries, were paid out of
a different account that wasn't charged against their space program. 
So using their numbers is an invalid comparison with numbers from a
differently organized economy because many of their costs are "hidden"
in other government accounts. That looks like it's changing, and we
may soon discover that Russian costs *aren't* really much lower than 
ours for similar launchers.

Gary
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