orys:
Carryfast:
That seems to show that you’re putting 2 + 2 together and coming up with 5 by comparing the apples situation of a protected but mature and developed western economy to the oranges one of a zb’d up communist one by jumping to the conclusion that the free market economy has helped the east european ones in the short term which wouldn’t be too difficult considering that anything would be better than the commy zb of an economy which they had before but which isn’t the same thing as what I’m saying at all.
I am glad that you see how ridiculous this comparision is, because you started it. Unlike you, I know the other system well, so I can pick the fragments which are relevants. You have got no clue about Eastern Europe, so you just keep talking your bullishit making idiot of yourself (at least to anyone who got the slightest idea).
It’s ironic that you’ve based your comparisons on cheap east european zb products and cheap capitalist ones like zb Morris Minors etc.
I am sorry that I compared the same class of vehicles. Should I compare Trabant to Mercedes? Or maybe Morris Minor to Tatra 613?
Which actually helps my argument.The fact is there is no difference between the so called capitalist idea of keeping wage levels,and therefore living standards low,in which the average British worker was/is supposed to be happy with his zb Mickey mouse poverty spec motor and going home to his zb tower block flat when he’s finished work for the day just as the workers in the eastern europe were expected to be happy with by their masters.The products were just a reflection of low living standards not a reflection of what could be achieved in a proper high wage economy.However the east europeans have never had the technical know how to build decent products anyway regardless of their economic system.Which is why even though the Russians have long gone,the east european industries still have to use west european know how to make anything even half decent.
Yeah, it shows how wrong you are: regardless of the system, cleaner will always drive Morris Minor (or Trabant or whatever [zb] they have in China) and fat cats will be driving top range vehicles like Mercedes or Tatras. No matter how hard you will try, you won’t make people doing simple jobs to afford top class living standards. It is simply impossible and 1000s of years of history showed that already. But you know better.
But you know what the problem is with people, who want better and want to save the world? It always end badly. Lenin was also full of good ideas for working people.
[Contrary to your ideas the 1960’s western european and US economies were in fact closer to that ideal of closed protected markets than the modern day global free market economy.
Off course I know that. That’s why you had 1980 crisis. Greece is delayed with that process and that why they have problems now.
The difference was that where the average socialist east european and Russian worker was happy with his Trabant or Lada etc etc and tower block flat the average US and British worker wanted something far better and,at that time,unlike their east european and Russian counterparts, went to their employers and demanded it.
Again you prove how little you know. Socialist Eastern European dreamed about driving Mercedes and living on a French Riviera, but they had to stick to what was available to them. EXACTLY as his British counterpart.
Which is why it was more often a case of a three or four bedroom
Believe or not, typical British two bedroom flat would fit easily in the two room (that mean two rooms, not two bedrooms and living room) flat I used to live in Poland. It was built in about 1950. Just as one bedroom flat I rented when I first come to Scotland would fit in my parents Polish living room. Believe or not, but some things were better for people in socialism.
detatched or semi bought with a mortgage and a 6 or 8 cylinder Ford/Vauxhall/Jaguar/Rover/Triumph or Chevrolet/Ford/Chrysler on the driveway than a Morris Minor and a flat that British and American workers were looking to buy with the values,in real terms,of the wages which they were looking for and demanding through the 1960’s/1970’s.
Yeah, off course. In 1970s Britain every toilet cleaner was driving brand new Jaguar. Off course I believe you, because I have no reason to believe that you lie to me: We had the same in the East: every factory car park was full of Tatras, Volgas and ГÐЗ-13 Чайка 
It seems to me that the so called capitalist employers and governments are relying on those inferior expectations,among east european workers,to help increase their profit margins in the short term at the expense of long term growth in wages and living standards in the western developed economies.So those idiots in the communist leadership and their modern capitalist counterparts weren’t/aren’t really that different after all. 
Yeah, that’s a really good thing to them that Eastern European are inferior in general. They are ready to work for a yorkshire pudding per day, because they have no families to feed, no homes to get back to and no dreams - they will be happy with whatever the mighty British emploey offer it, and even if they won’t be happy with that, they go and take this job only to ■■■■ the hardworking Britons, because they envie them their brand new Jags and V8 Rovers.
While on the subject of the crash worthiness of GM products during the 1950’s I’ve seen these stand up to a good bashing enough times at banger destruction derbys at Wimbledon to know that you wouldn’t want to be hit by one if you were driving a zb Trabant. 
When I was talking about Vauxhall Cavaliers, I was meaning the fact, that 1960 Trabant is safer for drivers than 1985 Vauxhall Cavalier, I have it somewher in paper.
See here:
baby-oel.de/temp/forum/seite3.jpg
On the left trabant (construction from 50’s - cab intact)
On the right modern (the article is from 1990s) cars of similar class (Fiat Cinquecento, Renault Twingo) or other classes (Opel Ascona, Isuzu Trooper…)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF4phDLfGF4
Say whatever you want, this is outstanding performance from the car that was 40 years old in 1991. Note the breaking steering column, when was that introduced in Vauxhall?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2kKj1ZNeww&feature=related
youtube.com/watch?v=7mTjxhj4FRk
First: as usual you don’t even know what you are talking about. The car in your second movie is P50 (as it’s clearly written in the movei description) so it’s two generations before Trabant 601 that saw the light about 1960. It’s a plastic body set on the construction of, if I remember correctly DKW car from mid-war period.
Second: I thought that you are against comparing vehicles from different classes, but obviously that does not apply to you: Trabant was a popular, cheap car, while your Vauxhall cresta was, according to Wikipedia, " This car, code named the PA version one, was one of the more elegant British cars of the late 1950s even though it was not sufficiently upmarket for it to be driven by those who considered themselves the elite of British society. Rock stars could drive them; barristers and doctors would not. This was ironic, because Queen Elizabeth II for many years used a bespoke Estate version as personal transport.". So I guess it was some equivalent of Volswagen Phaeton of nowadays - a good, luxury car, but just comes with a wrong badge…
But since you want to play your silly game, let’s compare these two cars:
The brilliant result of the British outstanding car manufacturing industry (off course driven only by eccentrics, as typical people from Working Class were crusing around in their V8 jags and Bentleys):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncbzBk-fDiM
And a crappy product of Czechoslovakian inferior village smiths:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8fNpTSLi80
As you can see, by picking the movies that suit your views you could prove anything you want, if only you found someone stupid enough to buy it. And as you did with the movies here (let me repeat it again: you picked wrong movie of wrong car and compared it to much better, 15 years later car), this is how you do with facts.
Therefore further discussion is futile. But I had fun as usual, thank you, you never fail to amuse me 
Firstly that comparison between the PA Cresta and that heap of a Trabant was relevant considering that it was a comparison of what was available at the time because at that point the 1960’s hadn’t happened and by which time it would have been the PB Cresta that we’d be talking about or 3.8 or 4.2 engined S Type Jag amongst others which would have been the British capitalist competitor to the Tatra . 
Although I suppose that next you’re going to say that the heap of a rear engined Tatra was a better car than any of those.Yeah right.
However the point I’m making is that I think that there were more ordinary workers driving Trabants etc (if they were very lucky)in the communist east european states than there were ordinary workers who were driving 6 cylinder Crestas,Zodiacs/Zephyrs,Triumphs and Jags etc here or V8 powered Chevys,Fords,and Chryslers etc in the states .As I’ve said the difference between capitalism and socialism (as it stood at that time) was the ideological difference between running an economy on higher aspirations and expectations v running one on the idea that everyone has to be brought down to an equally low level except for those who were high up in ‘the party’.
Ironically there are two types of capitalism.There’s the type that we saw in Victorian Britain and there’s the type which we saw in 1950’s/60’s America.The former was/is all about cheap labour and a low wage economy and low expectations among the workforce while the latter was/is all about high aspirations and expectations of ordinary workers to have a decent standard of living.It was that difference that Lenin didn’t have the intelligence to understand and the fact is the former of those two examples of capitalism was/is as bad,if not worse,as the worst aspects of socialism.
However it’s no surprise that it’s that east european immigrants now who seem more at home with the idea of capitalism’s return to the former type,considering the fact that the only reason why Lenin and his follwers could get away with doing something similar,was because,unlike British and US workers,the east european and Russian ones were always prepared to settle for the lowest zb option instead of going out there and demanding something a lot better from their guvnors.
