Comments by "Keit Hammleter" (@keithammleter3824) on "That Time the Soviets Tried to Abolish Money" video.

How Lenin came to be so highly regarded is a mystery to me. I have a copy of his book ""State and Revolution'", 2nd Ed 1918. It is truly wacky. A central theme repeated throughout is that communism will result in the State (that is government administration, the police and army) will wither away, as in the worker-controlled system with everyone equal and supplied with their needs, the functions of the State will no longer be needed, as they are in a capitalist system to keep the peace and control greed. Well, that idea worked out good, didn't it? There wasn't much government control and policing in the USSR was there?
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@Scott C. : US aggression didn't start until after World War 2. The USSR had a large military and government administration establishment before Germany attacked them.
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Most authorities state that the minimum adult daily need is around 3,000 calories for males. However, depending on what you eat, your body does not necessarily absorb those calories. In healthy people, if they eat more than they need, the calorific value of their poo rises. I once worked out how many calories I eat per day - it was about 5,000 calories. I tried cutting back to 4000, but all I could think of all the time was food. I'm older now, mid 70's but I still eat about 4,000 per day. And, no, I'm not large, I weigh about 130 Lb. If you don't eat meat, you need to eat more. If you do physical work, you need to eat more. If your environment is cold, you need to eat more - and the USSR was a very cold place. 3000 calories per day is the minimum for a sedentary worker in a warm environment.
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Ha! Rationing! That's why my mother emigrated from England to Australia in 1950 - to get away from stupid British rationing. Her form of revolt. In Australia, we had rationing during World War 2, but as soon as the government was sure we and the Yanks would win the War, they progressively took rationing off - and the Australian economy took off like a rocket. Rationing is like any government meddling, like another dopey British idea - price control. If governments allow a demand to occur, private enterprise will find a way to meet that demand - if you have free private enterprise. If governments suppress demand, either you get a black market or nobody does anything to solve the problem. In the 1950's we had thousands and thousands of British coming here - the smart ones - they came for the same reason as my mother did.
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@AC-jk8wq : What modern American standard? The average male needs 3,000 per day - if he is used to that amount and isn't working hard.. You don't necessarily gain weight more if you eat more. Not all calories are digested and put to use. Faeces have a considerable calorie content. Nomadic tribes living in deserts where there is no wood burn their animal's poo to provide heat for cooking and keeping warm at night. In healthy people, the body sheds what it doesn't need. Water soluble things like vitamins get ejected in urine. Fat soluble things get ejected in poo. This is why elderly people gain weight even if they maintain exercise levels - we progressively loose the ability to excrete what we don't need. Few people need to be concerned about getting fat when they are in their 20's to 50''s. Calories that the body does absorb and process go to maintaining body temperature as well as building fat. If you live in a cold climate you need to eat more. And Russia is a very cold place. We all notice an increase in appetite during winter, and a loss of appetite on hot summer days. Adults typically consume about 1300 calories per day just to maintain body temperature. Muscle at rest needs about 50-60 calories per day per kilogramme to stay healthy. Human brains are enormously energy expensive - needing about 300 calories per day just to stay intact. Being alert and thinking needs more. University students notoriously consume sugary foods.
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How was your tutor able to teach that with a straight face? Even then the USSR had reversed or abandoned many of the measures Lenin had prescribed. Their beaurocracy was huge. even in the mid-1930's just the NKVD (secret police) was huge - over 30,000 officers. Per head of population, that was 10 to 100 times the fraction other major countries. In his last days even Lenin admitted he had stuffed up.
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@AC-jk8wq : We know Americans like to eat at MacDonalds and similar cheap fast food places. I just looked up how many calories in a typical meal. 1 burger, 1 Coke, 1 serve fries, 1 fudge pudding: That's 1400 calories in just one meal. Most people eat 3 meals per day.
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@befeleme : China calls itself communist but most certainly isn't. Never has been. It's just a one-party state. China has succeeded very well, and is overtaking the USA. That's because the Chinese are pragmatic, and if something doesn't work, they stop doing it. If they see something works elsewhere, they do it. Like allowing foreign firms to set up factories and make exported profits. One of the problems of communist regimes is that people accumulate money either ""under the bed" or in bank savings accounts. So there is less money to invest in industrial development and innovation. Even in Mao's time the Chinese came to understand that and created a stock exchange - Marx would be rotating at high speed in his grave over that. China has implemented a patent registration system - that's really contrary to Marx's teachings which do not recognise intellectual property as ownable by individuals or corporations.
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@Feefa99 : Please write your own words and don't copy paste from ChatGPT.
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@deborahdean8867 : Where did you get that data? You are very precise about a soldier's needs - 4 figures - that's nonsense. How much a soldier (or anyone) needs depends on how hard they are physically working, how much stress they are under, and their environment. And how much they weigh: a large chap, say 183 cm and 150 kg, will need twice the calories of a short chap, say 165 cm and 60 kg, just to maintain their bodies. In airconditioning design, we take the heat load of the occupants as 300 watts per person at 24 C. If you raise the environment to 38 C (body temperature), the heat shed by live bodies shrinks to almost nothing. So they need to eat less calories. Take their environment down to 0 C and they'll need to eat more. When I was in my late teens. I was a skinny guy, so I decided to do weight lifting. In a short time I doubled the weight I could lift, but my appetite shot up so much I couldn't afford to continue. in intensive weight training, you need to double your calorie intake, or your muscles will not build up. You are dead right about vegans though..
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