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Monday, September 9, 2013

Shortages and Rationing in Poland during 1980s




    I watched your video and also read some articles about shortages in Argentina. For me its like a time machine which takes me back to 1980s. I'm polish and we had shortages (even worse than yours) during communism time. It really amazes me that you guys are now busy with copying all the mistakes Poland made 30 years ago. We had prices control, central control of economy, we tried to replace whole the import with a domestic production and ... none of those worked. At the end of 80s polish economy collapsed. I'm sorry to say this but you are currently heading towards exactly the same direction.

    The "funniest" part of your video was about toilet paper. The funniest, because toilet paper was always missing in the communist Poland. This fact was even used in many comedies from that time. There were also permanent shortages of meat. You can find below a photo of butcher's shop from the polish communism time:
 http://static.polskieradio.pl/files/95e078ed-9ebe-4c5d-bb36-1aeed599c032.file
    http://static.polskieradio.pl/files/95e078ed-9ebe-4c5d-bb36-1aeed599c032.file
What is missing on this picture? -:)

    I do not have also any good news for Argentina's future. What can the Argentine government do more? Looking at the polish past, the next step can be rationing goods and commodities. It was done at the begining of 80s in Poland and it of course ... did not work. Luckily for Poles, we've been busy with building a real market economy for more than twenty years. You should do the same I guess.

Martin

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