Comments by "BVargas78" (@BVargas78) on "Why Soviet People Had to Wait 9 Years to Buy a Lada Car? #USSR, #sovietcar" video.

The soviet union squandered fortunes on foreign wars and misadventures and trying to prop up third world communist or socialist allies. Imagine if that money wasnt used in those doomed ventures? And was invested in the peoples quality of life?
8
@NorceCodine The people may not have had it but the soviet government had access to large reserves of western currencies. That they mostly made from selling minerals and fuel resources. Also weapons sales. They could even get access to hard currency loans with interest when relations were in thaw. This money was often used to plug the gaps in shortfalls of the planned economy. Bad grain production? Buy it. Soviet produced technical components for the prestige project not up to required quality standard? Buy it. Things like cold war operations as well as the space project would eat into these reserves a lot. As well as official corruption. Billions was spent in fighting the cold war by proxy and in development aid for fledgling allies and warsaw pact states. Very little if any at all of this money would go to projects that could have improved the quality of life for common people.
1