Comments by "LancesArmorStriking" (@LancesArmorStriking) on "The Day Russian Democracy Died" video.

I wish you had gone more into the details of the economic restructuring itself-- the Loans for Shares program, for example, largely being the reason Russia has oligarchs today. Or the fact that the 'shock therapy' was guided extensively by the 'Harvard Boys', who were working closely with the US Treasury at the time. Russia's disfunction is not inherent-- it was to some extent imposed.
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@mou6854 Every pro-Western person says this, but can never answer how it was our fault. Nobody in the USSR understood markets-- the Loans for Shares failed for exactly this reason. How are you supposed to use a stock in a company if your whole life was under communism? Frankly, how was anybody in Russia supposed to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" when capitalism wasn't practiced? We had to rely on, and trust, the American economic advisors. Clearly, our trust was taken advantage of. It will not happen again.
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@mou6854 "besides yourselves" We blame Gorbachev and Yeltsin for poorly enacting reforms. Nobody is deflecting blame, we have pointed out where it is. I simply recognize that the people giving Yeltsin the ideas were bad, too. But, apparently those two are "off-limits"! Westerners just love them so, so much, that they won't have those awful Russians criticizing Gorby like that!!
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