http://www.advicegoddess.com/archive....html#comments

Alkon says:

"A post by Steven Horwitz at Library of Economics and Liberty made me realize something I hadn't noticed -- how luxuriously even people of average income eat these days."

Excerpts by Horwitz follow.

Also, you may want to check out the comment by Conan the Grammarian - he included a link to an article about Boris Yeltsin's 1989 visit to an American supermarket (in Houston?) and how astounded he was.



Lenona.

On Thursday, May 10, 2018 at 2:58:12 PM UTC-5, wrote:
>
> Also, you may want to check out the comment by Conan the Grammarian - he included a link to an article about Boris Yeltsin's 1989 visit to an American supermarket (in Houston?) and how astounded he was.
>
> Lenona.
>
>
I didn't read the article but when Khrushchev visited here in the late
50's and visited a supermarket he thought it had been staged. He didn't
believe there was that much food or variety in American grocery stores.

wrote:

> On Thursday, May 10, 2018 at 2:58:12 PM UTC-5, wrote:
> >
> > Also, you may want to check out the comment by Conan the Grammarian - he included a link to an article about Boris Yeltsin's 1989 visit to an American supermarket (in Houston?) and how astounded he was.
> >
> > Lenona.
> >
> >
> I didn't read the article but when Khrushchev visited here in the late
> 50's and visited a supermarket he thought it had been staged. He didn't
> believe there was that much food or variety in American grocery stores.


Yup, early (post - Stalin's 1953 demise) Soviet visitors to the US often thought that all that they saw in the US was staged. One Soviet official who landed at Idlewild (now JFK) airport thought that his whole trip into Manhattan had been staged; another on a San Francisco visit thought all the cars on the streets had been placed there for "show". As more Soviets visited the US, they became more sophisticated, and that all the common stuff they saw here - full food markets, cars, department and other stores, etc. - was not staged, but real.

It was part of the whole Russian "Potemkin Village" mentality, that information about the outside world was scarce (heavy censorship), and also that Soviets were constantly told that they had the highest standard of living and that they were the most prosperous country in the world. Eventually by the early - mid 60's, they started to realize that their government was simply lying to them. When the 1939 film "Grapes of Wrath" was finally shown in the USSR, their response was not shock at the poverty, but amazement that the Joads had their own vehicle...

I'm a history buff regarding that early era of US - Soviet cultural exchange, 1959 was really when ordinary Soviets started to think critically about the mis - information they were being fed. The summer 1959 US National Exhibition held in Moscow was a huge deal, it has been stated by some historians that it started "the beginning of the end of the USSR"; here is an article with fascinating pics, including General Mills staff showing Betty Crocker baked goods to Soviets:

https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-...ssia-550628823

"Over the course of six weeks during the height of the Cold War, almost three million Soviets visited an exhibition that celebrated America. American kitchens, American art, American cars, and most especially American capitalism. The American National Exhibition in Moscow was a full-court press to convince the Soviet people of American superiority.

It was supposed to be a showcase for how Americans of the 1950s were living and prospering. But like nearly everything American during this time, it was really about selling the future.

[...]

Books would often go missing from the displays, just as the food baked in the kitchens (officially off-limits for sampling by order of Soviet officials) would mysteriously disappear. But the Americans didn't worry too much about the stolen books; they'd brought plenty to replace them with.

The same went for the food. As General Mills notes on its blog, the company shipped seven tons of food to Moscow for the exhibition. A missing plate of brownies here and there was seen by the Americans as a welcome introduction into the world of easy-bake products. To get around the ban on handing out samples, the demo women learned that they could simply turn their back on finished desserts and the crowd would descend on them quickly.

[...]

The April 10, 1959 issue of official Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda didn't mince words when it ran the headline "Is This Typical?" This was only the start of the Soviet propaganda offensive against what was seen as manipulation by the U.S. exhibit to depict a lifestyle far outside the means of the average American. The show hadn't even started yet, but the magazine raised a valid point that would be repeated throughout the six weeks of the exhibit. The Americans were in many ways showing off the two things it sold best: consumer goods, and the future.

According to the Associated Press, the TASS news agency took many issues with the "typical" American homes on display at the exhibition. Special attention was paid of the $13,000 American house (about $100k adjusted for inflation) which was being planned and furnished by Macy's for an additional $5,000 (about $39k adjusted for inflation).

TASS explained, "Many wives of American workers will be surprised indeed to learn that their 'typical' kitchen is fully equipped with the most marvelous latest automatic devices." TASS contended that even if the average worker had $5,000 to spend at Macy's, "he could hardly succeed even for this sum in buying such furniture as is shown by the firm of Macy with the air or propaganda."

"Actually," TASS wrote, "there is no more truth in showing this as the typical home of the American worker than, say, in showing the Taj Mahal as the typical home of a Bombay textile worker, or Buckingham Palace as the typical home of an English miner."

While the furnishings on display may have been a bit extravagant, American home ownership was indeed soaring. In 1960, median household income for American families was $5,620, meaning that a $13,000 house was well within the middle class's reach when they took out a mortgage.

The Soviets may have been correct when they asserted that much of the furniture on display was not within reach of most Americans. But that average house, believe it or not, was actually the norm. Behind the scenes, this fact terrified Soviet officials..."

On Thursday, 10 May 2018 14:58:12 UTC-5, wrote:
> http://www.advicegoddess.com/archive....html#comments
>
> Alkon says:
>
> "A post by Steven Horwitz at Library of Economics and Liberty made me realize something I hadn't noticed -- how luxuriously even people of average income eat these days."
>
> Excerpts by Horwitz follow.
>
> Also, you may want to check out the comment by Conan the Grammarian - he included a link to an article about Boris Yeltsin's 1989 visit to an American supermarket (in Houston?) and how astounded he was.
>


I love this, thanks for posting. At the time, Soviet agriculture was *really* failing, bread was beginning to be rationed, and the food sitch would careen steeply downhill from there; Yelstin later wept when recalling the incident (from the above link):

"Yeltsin, then 58, "roamed the aisles of Randalls nodding his head in amazement," wrote [Houston Chronicle reporter Stefanie] Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution."

The fact that stores like these were on nearly every street corner in America amazed him. They even offered free cheese samples.

"When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people,€� Yeltsin wrote. €œThat such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it."

Steve 'Cannabis Oil' Wertz wrote:

> wrote:
>
> > On Thursday, May 10, 2018 at 2:58:12 PM UTC-5, wrote:
> > >
> > > Also, you may want to check out the comment by Conan the Grammarian - he included a link to an article about Boris Yeltsin's 1989 visit to an American supermarket (in Houston?) and how astounded he was.
> > >
> > > Lenona.
> > >
> > >
> > I didn't read the article but when Khrushchev visited here in the late
> > 50's and visited a supermarket he thought it had been staged. He didn't
> > believe there was that much food or variety in American grocery stores.
>
>
> Yup, early (post - Stalin's 1953 demise) Soviet visitors to the US often thought that all that they saw in the US was staged. One Soviet official who landed at Idlewild (now JFK) airport thought that his whole trip into Manhattan had been staged; another on a San Francisco visit thought all the cars on the streets had been placed there for "show". As more Soviets visited the US, they became more sophisticated, and that all the common stuff they saw here - full food markets, cars, department and other stores, etc. - was not staged, but real.
>
> It was part of the whole Russian "Potemkin Village" mentality, that information about the outside world was scarce (heavy censorship), and also that Soviets were constantly told that they had the highest standard of living and that they were the most prosperous country in the world. Eventually by the early - mid 60's, they started to realize that their government was simply lying to them. When the 1939 film "Grapes of Wrath" was finally shown in the USSR, their response was not shock at the poverty, but amazement that the Joads had their own vehicle...
>
> I'm a history buff regarding that early era of US - Soviet cultural exchange, 1959 was really when ordinary Soviets started to think critically about the mis - information they were being fed. The summer 1959 US National Exhibition held in Moscow was a huge deal, it has been stated by some historians that it started "the beginning of the end of the USSR"; some links, this to the US State Department press release:

https://2d73e25b29782b6d6766-9c8af5c...1620810000.pdf

The Russian - language guidebook:

https://2d73e25b29782b6d6766-9c8af5c...0189330000.pdf


Chrysler Corporation 1959 "Forward Look" Russian/English brochure, this brochure explains the importance of cars for the US lifestyle, very well - produced:

http://www.imperialclub.com/Yr/1959/59Russian/index.htm

General Motors Russian - language brochu

http://oldcarbrochures.org/index.php...r_1959-Russian

Some Pages of the 1959 Ford Russian - language brochu

http://freedomcars.ru/wri/ussr/prosp...r0ford/001.jpg

http://freedomcars.ru/wri/ussr/prosp...r0ford/002.jpg

http://freedomcars.ru/wri/ussr/prosp...r0ford/004.jpg

http://freedomcars.ru/wri/ussr/prosp...r0ford/005.jpg

http://freedomcars.ru/wri/ussr/prosp...r0ford/011.jpg

http://freedomcars.ru/wri/ussr/prosp...r0ford/012.jpg

http://freedomcars.ru/wri/ussr/prosp...r0ford/014.jpg

http://freedomcars.ru/wri/ussr/prosp...r0ford/016.jpg

Complete Ford brochure and many US National Exhibition Moscow auto pix at (Russian - language):

http://freedomcars.ru/wri/ussr.shtml

--
GM

> wrote in message
...
>
>
> http://www.advicegoddess.com/archive....html#comments
>
> Alkon says:
>
> "A post by Steven Horwitz at Library of Economics and Liberty made me
> realize something I hadn't noticed -- how luxuriously even people of
> average income eat these days."
>
> Excerpts by Horwitz follow.
>
> Also, you may want to check out the comment by Conan the Grammarian - he
> included a link to an article about Boris Yeltsin's 1989 visit to an
> American supermarket (in Houston?) and how astounded he was.

Grocery stores will come to you? Obviously written by a person who knows
little of food history in urban areas.

On 2018-05-10 2:52 PM, Steve 'Cannabis Oil' Wertz wrote:
> On Thursday, 10 May 2018 14:58:12 UTC-5, wrote:
>> http://www.advicegoddess.com/archive....html#comments
>>
>> Alkon says:
>>
>> "A post by Steven Horwitz at Library of Economics and Liberty made me realize something I hadn't noticed -- how luxuriously even people of average income eat these days."
>>
>> Excerpts by Horwitz follow.
>>
>> Also, you may want to check out the comment by Conan the Grammarian - he included a link to an article about Boris Yeltsin's 1989 visit to an American supermarket (in Houston?) and how astounded he was.
>>
>
>
> I love this, thanks for posting. At the time, Soviet agriculture was *really* failing, bread was beginning to be rationed, and the food sitch would careen steeply downhill from there; Yelstin later wept when recalling the incident (from the above link):
>
> "Yeltsin, then 58, "roamed the aisles of Randalls nodding his head in amazement," wrote [Houston Chronicle reporter Stefanie] Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution."
>
> The fact that stores like these were on nearly every street corner in America amazed him. They even offered free cheese samples.
>
> "When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people,€� Yeltsin wrote. €œThat such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it."
>
One of the significant things that contributed to Glasnost was during
the visit to Canada by Gorbachev. He was then Minister for Agriculture
and he visited farms in the west that were owned by farmers of Ukranian
descent. He was apparently astounded at their productivity and living
standards especially when compared to those in the Ukraine.

graham wrote:

> On 2018-05-10 2:52 PM, Steve 'Cannabis Oil' Wertz wrote:
> > On Thursday, 10 May 2018 14:58:12 UTC-5, wrote:
> >> http://www.advicegoddess.com/archive....html#comments
> >>
> >> Alkon says:
> >>
> >> "A post by Steven Horwitz at Library of Economics and Liberty made me realize something I hadn't noticed -- how luxuriously even people of average income eat these days."
> >>
> >> Excerpts by Horwitz follow.
> >>
> >> Also, you may want to check out the comment by Conan the Grammarian - he included a link to an article about Boris Yeltsin's 1989 visit to an American supermarket (in Houston?) and how astounded he was.
> >>
> >
> >
> > I love this, thanks for posting. At the time, Soviet agriculture was *really* failing, bread was beginning to be rationed, and the food sitch would careen steeply downhill from there; Yelstin later wept when recalling the incident (from the above link):
> >
> > "Yeltsin, then 58, "roamed the aisles of Randalls nodding his head in amazement," wrote [Houston Chronicle reporter Stefanie] Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution."
> >
> > The fact that stores like these were on nearly every street corner in America amazed him. They even offered free cheese samples.
> >
> > "When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people,€� Yeltsin wrote. €œThat such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it."
> >
> One of the significant things that contributed to Glasnost was during
> the visit to Canada by Gorbachev. He was then Minister for Agriculture
> and he visited farms in the west that were owned by farmers of Ukranian
> descent. He was apparently astounded at their productivity and living
> standards especially when compared to those in the Ukraine.


In 1963 Canada was the first Western nation to successfully negotiate a large deal with the Soviets to export Canadian wheat to the USSR; the next year the Soviets started importing US wheat...

Now Russian ag has advanced so far from the dire communist times that they have again become major grain exporters:

https://www.country-guide.ca/2016/12...n-wheat/50031/

"Russia takes on the world

Millions of acres in Russia had been waiting for someone to farm them. Now theyre bursting with grain

For many Canadian grain growers, this years weather concerns, disease pressure, high input costs, and low crop prices made it seem like weve already been facing the perfect storm. However, there is an even bigger threat on the horizon €” Russia.

In the first week of October, while most Canadian growers were still busy with harvest, three reputable international organizations warned of the impact Russia will have on grain markets, not only this year but, because of the bumper Russian crop, for the long term too.

On October 6 the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, Cereals & Oilseeds Division, (a United Kingdom agency, funded by a statutory farm levy and independent of government and commercial industry) issued the statement: €œRussian grain crop exceeds expectations.€�

This boards purpose is to increase the competitiveness and sustainability of U.K. farmers by providing factual, evidence-based advice, and it predicted this years harvest of 117.2MT would be the biggest in Russia since 1978.

Wheat will be the primary driver of the increase, and the board predicted Russia will harvest 70.8 MT this year. Given this scenario, Russia will be looking to export a record amount of grain, including an estimated 30.4 MT of wheat alone...

[...]

Still, if there is a bright spot for Canadian wheat, it is that Russian wheat is primarily lower grade and medium protein. It is not as suitable for western-style bread or Asian noodles.

So to protect Canadian wheat markets we need to focus on growing high-quality wheats our customers want and providing superior service to those markets.


Grain companies invest in Russia

While the growing dominance of Russia in the world grain trade may be news for Canadian farmers, it isnt to the global grain trade. Major grain companies have made large investments in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Archer Daniels Midland began trading grains in Russia in 1980.

Bunge established a subsidiary company in Russia in 2004. It acquired elevators and a grain terminal as well as building a sunflower seed refinery. It has already captured over 12 per cent of the Russian bottled vegetable oil market.

Cargill has been exporting grain from Russia since 1998. It has invested over US$1.1 billion in Russian infrastructure including elevators, terminals, sunflower crush plants, animal nutrition processing, and a chicken processing plant.

Louis Dreyfus in 2013 announced its intention to expand grain storage from 1.4 to four million tonnes of grains in Russia over four years. In 2015, that expansion started with the purchase of the Azov Grain Terminal.

Glencore has acquired farms and storage facilities in Russia since 2007.

Olam International Ltd. entered the Russian market in 2005 with its Outspan International Ltd.,and since then has become one of the biggest suppliers of raw and semi-finished products to the Russian food-processing sector. As well, it has invested in a port facility and in dairy farms in Russia. Its goal is to grow its Russian dairy operation to a milking herd of 50,000 head..."

On Thursday, May 10, 2018 at 3:58:12 PM UTC-4, wrote:
> http://www.advicegoddess.com/archive....html#comments
>
> Alkon says:
>
> "A post by Steven Horwitz at Library of Economics and Liberty made me realize something I hadn't noticed -- how luxuriously even people of average income eat these days."
>
> Excerpts by Horwitz follow.


Part of what Horwitz said:

....The 21st century American grocery store, by contrast, is a marvel of higher quality, lower cost, and expanded variety. There is simply no comparison between the quality of the produce, meats, and bread available at even a large middle-market chain like Kroger today and what was available anywhere in the 1970s. Measured in terms of labor hours required for purchase, food has generally never been cheaper. We see that today, as poverty in America is far more likely to be associated with obesity than with being underweight.

....An example from the evolution of the grocery store illustrates this point. In the 1970s, there were maybe five or six kinds of potato chips (regular, barbecue, sour cream and onion, ruffled, tortilla chips, and the stuff in the can). Today, the typical grocery store has a potato chip aisle that offers dozens of differentiated products along numerous dimensions. This increase in variety allows consumers to satisfy their preferences more precisely, increasing their subjective well-being. You want your gluten-free, lactose-free chocolate chip cookies? You can probably find them. You want your throwback taco-flavored Doritos? They're there. The expansion of variety in the typical grocery store has dramatically increased the subjective well-being of American consumers in ways that macroeconomic measures like GDP cannot capture.

....The Best Is Yet to Come
The next steps in the evolution of the grocery market may be driven by Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods. My own prediction parallels Ruhlman's in Grocery: we'll see the center of grocery stores shrink, as dry goods come from Amazon or warehouse stores. The perimeter of grocery stores will remain, as produce, meat, baked goods, dairy, frozen foods, and prepared foods will continue to be demanded in increasing quality and variety...


(snip)


Crid, for one, pointed out the problems with Amazon and food delivery - there's a link.


Lenona.