who here will vote for Ron Paul, the only honest n level headed man running?
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Putting your faith in a private central bank because they care about the people and want them to be happy... lol @ that bullshit.
Never said I was an expert on this. And your right, the gold standard would not solve all the worlds problems. However, it would prevent the Fed from printing money and loaning it out at damn near 0% interest.
To create money out of thin air, then charge people interest to use that money... sounds like a scam to me.
Social security is a ponzi because if people do not continuously pay into the system, it collapses.
For example, if young people opt out of the system, there will not be money available for the old people, whom have already paid into the system. Without a new, fresh supply of American drones paying blindly into the death pit that is social security, the system collapses.
Hmmmm, a system where if new people don't keep sending in money, the people whom have already paid into the system are fucked.... Ponzi.
Humans have proved that the temptation to print money out of thin air is just too great. It seems to ALWAYS happen throughout history. The only way to prevent that is a commodity bases currency.
Inflation anyone?
Never said I was an expert on this. And your right, the gold standard would not solve all the worlds problems. However, it would prevent the Fed from printing money and loaning it out at damn near 0% interest.
To create money out of thin air, then charge people interest to use that money... sounds like a scam to me.
Social security is a ponzi because if people do not continuously pay into the system, it collapses.
For example, if young people opt out of the system, there will not be money available for the old people, whom have already paid into the system. Without a new, fresh supply of American drones paying blindly into the death pit that is social security, the system collapses.
Hmmmm, a system where if new people don't keep sending in money, the people whom have already paid into the system are fucked.... Ponzi.
Humans have proved that the temptation to print money out of thin air is just too great. It seems to ALWAYS happen throughout history. The only way to prevent that is a commodity bases currency.
Inflation anyone?
To be fair, a ponzi scheme usually offers faster returns, so I would say SS loosely fits the definition of ponzi scheme. It definitely does rely on new investors paying off the old investors though.
However, whatever you want to call it, it is an unsustainable mandated savings program that the government has no business being in.
I remember talking about the concept that in order for one person to get more, another person has to get less.
Works the same on a large scale, for American companies to control the resources, they have to take that from someone else. That is why other countries hate America. We take their resources and tell them go fuck yourself.
But they hate us for our freedoms.... right? lol
Works the same on a large scale, for American companies to control the resources, they have to take that from someone else. That is why other countries hate America. We take their resources and tell them go fuck yourself.
But they hate us for our freedoms.... right? lol
i completely and utterly agree with you.
the idea that America was only like, a small percentage of the planet's population, but used a huge amount of the world's resources is totally unsustainable.
that's why when these white tea party old timers grunt and growl about America going down the drain. they don't realize that American had it so good for so long. and that trying to maintain that level of life style (and use of the world's resources) is impossible.
so the global economy is talked about to no end. but what is really happening is that the standard of living is slowly but surely going to equalize across the world, as other countries' economies develop. especially china and india.
while you all are talking about doing away with this system, please present to me a viable alternative. until then, i'm sticking with the good ole American system. if there is another system available, please let me know.
but the fact that all major economies have moved away from the gold standard with no harm to their way of life speaks volumes to me.
and who gives a fuck why people hate us? are we all supposed to get along and sing kum by yah or sunthin? come on y'all. of course people gonna hate on the super power of the world. that's human nature.
the idea that America was only like, a small percentage of the planet's population, but used a huge amount of the world's resources is totally unsustainable.
that's why when these white tea party old timers grunt and growl about America going down the drain. they don't realize that American had it so good for so long. and that trying to maintain that level of life style (and use of the world's resources) is impossible.
so the global economy is talked about to no end. but what is really happening is that the standard of living is slowly but surely going to equalize across the world, as other countries' economies develop. especially china and india.
while you all are talking about doing away with this system, please present to me a viable alternative. until then, i'm sticking with the good ole American system. if there is another system available, please let me know.
but the fact that all major economies have moved away from the gold standard with no harm to their way of life speaks volumes to me.
and who gives a fuck why people hate us? are we all supposed to get along and sing kum by yah or sunthin? come on y'all. of course people gonna hate on the super power of the world. that's human nature.
does the US central bank cater to special interest? in the face of the little guy?
of fucking course. i won't ever deny that reality. the system is the system. it will have its built in flaws. but the overall good of the system is relevant to the discussion as well.
there is both good and bad, i'm just willing to accept some of the bad because of the overwhelmingly good (of course, this is my opinion).
as far as SS being a ponzi scheme....
the word ponzi scheme is basically saying the Fed govt is perpetuating a fraud upon the citizens in order to make money. i don't agree with that rhetoric.
but i do agree that SS is unsustainable. and so I do not even think about it or plan on it. even though i pay into the system for it.
unfair? yes. but sometimes you've got to give to get. and the life style afforded to me in this country, i wouldn't trade that chit for nothing in the world right now.
of fucking course. i won't ever deny that reality. the system is the system. it will have its built in flaws. but the overall good of the system is relevant to the discussion as well.
there is both good and bad, i'm just willing to accept some of the bad because of the overwhelmingly good (of course, this is my opinion).
as far as SS being a ponzi scheme....
the word ponzi scheme is basically saying the Fed govt is perpetuating a fraud upon the citizens in order to make money. i don't agree with that rhetoric.
but i do agree that SS is unsustainable. and so I do not even think about it or plan on it. even though i pay into the system for it.
unfair? yes. but sometimes you've got to give to get. and the life style afforded to me in this country, i wouldn't trade that chit for nothing in the world right now.
Putting your faith in a private central bank because they care about the people and want them to be happy... lol @ that bullshit.
Never said I was an expert on this. And your right, the gold standard would not solve all the worlds problems. However, it would prevent the Fed from printing money and loaning it out at damn near 0% interest.
To create money out of thin air, then charge people interest to use that money... sounds like a scam to me.
Social security is a ponzi because if people do not continuously pay into the system, it collapses.
For example, if young people opt out of the system, there will not be money available for the old people, whom have already paid into the system. Without a new, fresh supply of American drones paying blindly into the death pit that is social security, the system collapses.
Hmmmm, a system where if new people don't keep sending in money, the people whom have already paid into the system are fucked.... Ponzi.
Humans have proved that the temptation to print money out of thin air is just too great. It seems to ALWAYS happen throughout history. The only way to prevent that is a commodity bases currency.
Inflation anyone?
Never said I was an expert on this. And your right, the gold standard would not solve all the worlds problems. However, it would prevent the Fed from printing money and loaning it out at damn near 0% interest.
To create money out of thin air, then charge people interest to use that money... sounds like a scam to me.
Social security is a ponzi because if people do not continuously pay into the system, it collapses.
For example, if young people opt out of the system, there will not be money available for the old people, whom have already paid into the system. Without a new, fresh supply of American drones paying blindly into the death pit that is social security, the system collapses.
Hmmmm, a system where if new people don't keep sending in money, the people whom have already paid into the system are fucked.... Ponzi.
Humans have proved that the temptation to print money out of thin air is just too great. It seems to ALWAYS happen throughout history. The only way to prevent that is a commodity bases currency.
Inflation anyone?
but that is it, though brodie.
let's say we stuck to the gold standard and somehow the housing recession still happened (IMO, the housing recession was caused by the inaction of those sitting on the board of the Federal Reserve, but this is hypothetical).
the govt would NOT be able to ease the effects of the recession. if you had money going into the cycle dip, good for you. if you were a working person who lost their job, God bless you. because you'd be basically left up to your own devices to make it. rob, steal and kill. the recession would have hit the US MUCH MUCH harder than it did.
but the fact that the Fed can essentially create money out of thin air, as you pointed out, is actually a good thing. by increasing the money supply, and encouraging lending and buying by setting the prime rate so low, this eases the cyclic dip. these 'tools' are used to soften the blow when the economy hits rock bottom. ETA: and this is also an attempt to kick start the economy back into motion.
advocating the gold standard is cool i guess. but the reality of the situation is that the world's economy (by individual country) has surpassed such a system. the gold standard would wholly restrict growth and prosperity. because IT IS A LIMITED COMMODITY! there is a finite amount of it.
You're damn straight the Military-Industrial Complex is milking your country dry. Arms companies disobey everything even the ABM treaty. They bribe congress with kickbacks and slush funds for their campaign. In turn congress will vote for anything the weapons companies propose, no matter how illogical. Ask Trent Lott why his district has more C-130's for display alone (13), than the US Air Force has asked for altogether since 1976. In fact they have asked for 5 since that date and the amount actually built and purchased is 256.
And when Ron Paul says he wants to abolish so many branches of government, for the most part he wants to reform them because they have corrupted and/or proven inefficient. The IRS, the Federal Reserve, FEMA, the CIA, the FBI etc. And you can sit here saying this and that about Austrian economics but with it Peter Schiff has been predicting all the massive financial crisis beforehand.
I'm not trying to say RP doesn't have some... "odd" ideas to say the least, at times he tries to market constitutional amendments that would inadvertently create different unconstitutional policies (like his segregation policy). But to be honest, I really doubt any of these outlandish proposals will last especially if he wants to be a serious candidate.
And when Ron Paul says he wants to abolish so many branches of government, for the most part he wants to reform them because they have corrupted and/or proven inefficient. The IRS, the Federal Reserve, FEMA, the CIA, the FBI etc. And you can sit here saying this and that about Austrian economics but with it Peter Schiff has been predicting all the massive financial crisis beforehand.
I'm not trying to say RP doesn't have some... "odd" ideas to say the least, at times he tries to market constitutional amendments that would inadvertently create different unconstitutional policies (like his segregation policy). But to be honest, I really doubt any of these outlandish proposals will last especially if he wants to be a serious candidate.
All i know is my wealth has increased dramatically over the last 10 years while the majority of the population's has declined. Ron Paul may be right on a lot of policy, but i'll keep riding the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama train til that mother fucker burns and I am right there in the soup line too.
Central banking and central planning have pretty much distorted every single commodity market on the planet by either monopolizing, price fixing, inflating, subsidizing, etc. It seems like The Federal Reserve Bank, while certainly contributing to the housing bubble by keeping interest rates artificially low and ignoring the perversions in the mortgage industry...they really aren't specifically nearly as culpable as the government themselves and wall street, who knew there would come an end to it...most likely abruptly.
That's part of what caused the housing bubble, but the other part (which is the big nail in the coffin, IMO) is that the government INSISTED on giving houses away to people who could not afford them, were not worthy of the loans they were given, and were taken advantage of by an industry that knew it was going to burst...it was the 800lb gorilla in the room for everyone from The White House, Congress, Banking Industry, Fannie & Freddie, etc...they all knew, at least at the highest levels. Either they were conspiring or too stupid to see the risk to a point of borderline criminality. All of those complex derivatives and mortgage backed securities & shit that popped up and carried on until the bitter end is evidence that they all knew...they were betting against loans that the government pretty much forced the market into making.
In a perfect world, the grandiose ideas of central planning are great...that would be an awesome society to live in...but the reality is, IT DOESN'T WORK! There are too many variables in a world with 7B people, 230+ sovereign nations w/ unique circumstances and interests...and too many conflicts of interest within the current plutocracy for it to ever work as anything besides a PR message designed to hide failure and promote hegemony.
If Ron Paul or someone of similar character doesn't step up and try to reform some of it and scale it down...then the system will buckle and we'll have one of these CIA pricks seize power like Putin has done in Russia...where, thanks to the collapse of their financial system and subsequent collapse of government, they can look forward to more Putin until the day he dies or someone poisons his vodka.
I'd personally rather see Ron Paul give it a shot than see some Putin or Dulles type of character ruling over us indefinitely.
Too big to fail, war on drugs, imperialism, promoting democracy at gun point, right to _________ (insert entitlement) is a myth...all just ideas that have not stood up to the burden of proof, throughout history...can we at least TRY something else? Something more sustainable, even if it ends up being slightly less glamorous or profitable?
That's part of what caused the housing bubble, but the other part (which is the big nail in the coffin, IMO) is that the government INSISTED on giving houses away to people who could not afford them, were not worthy of the loans they were given, and were taken advantage of by an industry that knew it was going to burst...it was the 800lb gorilla in the room for everyone from The White House, Congress, Banking Industry, Fannie & Freddie, etc...they all knew, at least at the highest levels. Either they were conspiring or too stupid to see the risk to a point of borderline criminality. All of those complex derivatives and mortgage backed securities & shit that popped up and carried on until the bitter end is evidence that they all knew...they were betting against loans that the government pretty much forced the market into making.
In a perfect world, the grandiose ideas of central planning are great...that would be an awesome society to live in...but the reality is, IT DOESN'T WORK! There are too many variables in a world with 7B people, 230+ sovereign nations w/ unique circumstances and interests...and too many conflicts of interest within the current plutocracy for it to ever work as anything besides a PR message designed to hide failure and promote hegemony.
If Ron Paul or someone of similar character doesn't step up and try to reform some of it and scale it down...then the system will buckle and we'll have one of these CIA pricks seize power like Putin has done in Russia...where, thanks to the collapse of their financial system and subsequent collapse of government, they can look forward to more Putin until the day he dies or someone poisons his vodka.
I'd personally rather see Ron Paul give it a shot than see some Putin or Dulles type of character ruling over us indefinitely.
Too big to fail, war on drugs, imperialism, promoting democracy at gun point, right to _________ (insert entitlement) is a myth...all just ideas that have not stood up to the burden of proof, throughout history...can we at least TRY something else? Something more sustainable, even if it ends up being slightly less glamorous or profitable?
What makes you think that a deregulated free market democracy will work better given those same circumstances you listed?
Putin is actually a great example defeating your point. There are societies where democracy simply doesn't work, for various socio-cultural reasons. Russia is one of them and they were a real mess in the 90s. That a strong leader would eventually emerge and consolidate power was inevitable (the people wanted it themselves), and that the country would function better this way was also expected. And that's what happened. It doesn't mean that it is the optimal solution, it isn't; but it is better than the alternative
Putin is actually a great example defeating your point. There are societies where democracy simply doesn't work, for various socio-cultural reasons. Russia is one of them and they were a real mess in the 90s. That a strong leader would eventually emerge and consolidate power was inevitable (the people wanted it themselves), and that the country would function better this way was also expected. And that's what happened. It doesn't mean that it is the optimal solution, it isn't; but it is better than the alternative
But the government of Russia basically just acts like a big corrupt corporation, how is that really fundamentally different than what we deal with here?
Russia has a corrupt profit seeking government running the country
The US has corrupt profit seeking corporations running the country,
Again, tomato, tomatoe....
It's not as simple and direct comparison as it might seem
Most people in the West don't really understand the psychology of people in the East and they don't understand at all the nature of the change 20 years ago. Not their fault, but if you have been raised into believing free market democracy is the only way to go, then it is no surprise you are not able to understand how someone who has never lived in a democracy may think differently.
The first misconception is that the Change happened because the people demanded it. They didn't, it is not clear why exactly it happened, various versions circulate, it seems to have happened because the people on top allowed it to happen and even actively helped here and there, but it most definitely wasn't because the majority of people wanted to live in a democracy. To begin with, they had no idea what a democracy was, the only thing they knew was that people in the West had a better material standard of living (but they didn't know exactly how much better) and they wanted the same, but that was it. I am not from Russia so I can not exactly speak about the conditions there, I am from Bulgaria but that's in a way better because the curious peculiarity about Bulgaria was that the local leader Zhivkov happened to be prone to telling it exactly like it is without any sugarcoating which wasn't the case at all in Russia where everything was kept secret. A famous line of his was that "People understand freedom as having something to eat and drink" and it was a very accurate observation. People didn't want freedom in the way it is understood in the West because they never knew what freedom was and never saw any value in it. They had been transitioned directly from a traditional patriarchal, almost feudal society (it was a truly feudal one in the case of Russia only a few decades before the revolution and Bulgarians were officially semi-slaves in the Otoman Empire until about the same time) to a totalitarian system.
The second misconception is that a long and stable strong-man rule necessarily leads to more corruption. Yes, it does, relative to what you have in Switzerland. But it is paradoxically better than a nominal democracy with frequent change of administrations when the conditions for that kind of democracy do not exist. As is the case in Russia. The epitome of the totalitarian state was the Soviet Union under Stalin. And people will tell you a long list of very bad things that Stalin did, and justifiably so, however, corruption is not one of them. He is not known to have had billions in foreign bank accounts, luxurious yachts, harems of expensive prostitutes, and all of the rest that we usually associate with the archetypal dictator that lives on the back of the people. The reason is that those things weren't on his mind - if you look at what he did, even the very bad things, the pattern is consistent with someone who wants to stay in power at all costs, but whose policy decisions are made from a long-term statesmanship perspective, because he plans to stay in power forever. It was the same pattern with communists until the very last generation of leaders, the people who were in their 50s around 1989 - those older than them enjoyed a much better lifestyle than the average person, of course, but it wasn't anything excessive, and the reason is that they thought they were there forever and they had a mission so there was no reason to grab and steal as if there is no tomorrow. The bank accounts abroad only appeared towards the end with that younger generation that I mentioned, when it became clear that the system was going to fall apart soon.
Now once a nominal democracy was established, it was a completely different game - you were there for 4 years, if you lasted that long, so you tried to grab as much as you could so that you secure a good future for you, your family, relatives and friends, while politics, statesmanship, the long-term interests of the country be damned. It is a very destructive thing for the country if politicians behave this way. From the perspective of the people, and from a neutral historic perspective, it is much much better to have someone with all the power and operating under the assumption that he will be there for a long time so that this short-term "I'm gonna steal as much as I can now because I don't know if I am going to be in a position to do so tomorrow" behavior is at least to some extent restrained.
If you ask "Why is it that people elect such officials?", the answer goes back to what I said about some societies not being ready for democracy and being better off without it - you can not elect non-corrupt officials because there aren't any and people don't really expect that. In fact, the average person on the street who can invariably be heard loudly decrying the state of corruptness of whatever the current administration is would behave in exactly the same lawless manner if he were in a position of power. Which is true everywhere all over the world, the only differences are how much of a norm corruption is in a society and to what extent people have a long-term vision about things.
Given what it has done so far, it seems that Russia has a corrupt profit-seeking government that however also takes into account the long-term future of the country and that has put the mess that the country was in the 90s in some order. Which is an upgrade.
In contrast, in the US, you have elections, someone gets elected and gets a 4-year term in office. But in the second year there are elections for members of the Congress and then from the middle of the third year on, it is again campaign time for re-election. Basically, it is one continuous election cycle, with no stability whatsoever. From the perspective I outlined above, this is much worse than having Putin+Medvedev in office for 18 years
Most people in the West don't really understand the psychology of people in the East and they don't understand at all the nature of the change 20 years ago. Not their fault, but if you have been raised into believing free market democracy is the only way to go, then it is no surprise you are not able to understand how someone who has never lived in a democracy may think differently.
The first misconception is that the Change happened because the people demanded it. They didn't, it is not clear why exactly it happened, various versions circulate, it seems to have happened because the people on top allowed it to happen and even actively helped here and there, but it most definitely wasn't because the majority of people wanted to live in a democracy. To begin with, they had no idea what a democracy was, the only thing they knew was that people in the West had a better material standard of living (but they didn't know exactly how much better) and they wanted the same, but that was it. I am not from Russia so I can not exactly speak about the conditions there, I am from Bulgaria but that's in a way better because the curious peculiarity about Bulgaria was that the local leader Zhivkov happened to be prone to telling it exactly like it is without any sugarcoating which wasn't the case at all in Russia where everything was kept secret. A famous line of his was that "People understand freedom as having something to eat and drink" and it was a very accurate observation. People didn't want freedom in the way it is understood in the West because they never knew what freedom was and never saw any value in it. They had been transitioned directly from a traditional patriarchal, almost feudal society (it was a truly feudal one in the case of Russia only a few decades before the revolution and Bulgarians were officially semi-slaves in the Otoman Empire until about the same time) to a totalitarian system.
The second misconception is that a long and stable strong-man rule necessarily leads to more corruption. Yes, it does, relative to what you have in Switzerland. But it is paradoxically better than a nominal democracy with frequent change of administrations when the conditions for that kind of democracy do not exist. As is the case in Russia. The epitome of the totalitarian state was the Soviet Union under Stalin. And people will tell you a long list of very bad things that Stalin did, and justifiably so, however, corruption is not one of them. He is not known to have had billions in foreign bank accounts, luxurious yachts, harems of expensive prostitutes, and all of the rest that we usually associate with the archetypal dictator that lives on the back of the people. The reason is that those things weren't on his mind - if you look at what he did, even the very bad things, the pattern is consistent with someone who wants to stay in power at all costs, but whose policy decisions are made from a long-term statesmanship perspective, because he plans to stay in power forever. It was the same pattern with communists until the very last generation of leaders, the people who were in their 50s around 1989 - those older than them enjoyed a much better lifestyle than the average person, of course, but it wasn't anything excessive, and the reason is that they thought they were there forever and they had a mission so there was no reason to grab and steal as if there is no tomorrow. The bank accounts abroad only appeared towards the end with that younger generation that I mentioned, when it became clear that the system was going to fall apart soon.
Now once a nominal democracy was established, it was a completely different game - you were there for 4 years, if you lasted that long, so you tried to grab as much as you could so that you secure a good future for you, your family, relatives and friends, while politics, statesmanship, the long-term interests of the country be damned. It is a very destructive thing for the country if politicians behave this way. From the perspective of the people, and from a neutral historic perspective, it is much much better to have someone with all the power and operating under the assumption that he will be there for a long time so that this short-term "I'm gonna steal as much as I can now because I don't know if I am going to be in a position to do so tomorrow" behavior is at least to some extent restrained.
If you ask "Why is it that people elect such officials?", the answer goes back to what I said about some societies not being ready for democracy and being better off without it - you can not elect non-corrupt officials because there aren't any and people don't really expect that. In fact, the average person on the street who can invariably be heard loudly decrying the state of corruptness of whatever the current administration is would behave in exactly the same lawless manner if he were in a position of power. Which is true everywhere all over the world, the only differences are how much of a norm corruption is in a society and to what extent people have a long-term vision about things.
Given what it has done so far, it seems that Russia has a corrupt profit-seeking government that however also takes into account the long-term future of the country and that has put the mess that the country was in the 90s in some order. Which is an upgrade.
In contrast, in the US, you have elections, someone gets elected and gets a 4-year term in office. But in the second year there are elections for members of the Congress and then from the middle of the third year on, it is again campaign time for re-election. Basically, it is one continuous election cycle, with no stability whatsoever. From the perspective I outlined above, this is much worse than having Putin+Medvedev in office for 18 years
Russia is a shitty example. One man should never be the end-all be-all in a democracy.
I don't think it will be worse. I think it will allow a more natural cycle of supply & demand determined prices, competition, innovation, and most importantly failure when failure is prudent. After all the political stuff is stripped away...the government answer to everything, under the current system, is more government jobs. How long before the government is half (or more) of our economy? The last 30 years in particular have seen government, government spending, and most negative indicators grow exponentially.
In my opinion, most of this can be attributed to corporate influence on policy...policy motivated by GDP, attached to some completely false idea that when the rich get richer the wealth trickles down. All of this doesn't hold up to scrutiny. If you're in favor of this system, then you might as well go live in Russia, since their cultural system is more aligned with your ideas of what a democracy looks like.
I don't think it will be worse. I think it will allow a more natural cycle of supply & demand determined prices, competition, innovation, and most importantly failure when failure is prudent. After all the political stuff is stripped away...the government answer to everything, under the current system, is more government jobs. How long before the government is half (or more) of our economy? The last 30 years in particular have seen government, government spending, and most negative indicators grow exponentially.
In my opinion, most of this can be attributed to corporate influence on policy...policy motivated by GDP, attached to some completely false idea that when the rich get richer the wealth trickles down. All of this doesn't hold up to scrutiny. If you're in favor of this system, then you might as well go live in Russia, since their cultural system is more aligned with your ideas of what a democracy looks like.
The standard of living sucks from the perspective of someone who lives in the US and enjoy the higher level of material consumption there. For those starving in Somalia, the standard of living in Russia is a dream.
Once the needs in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, humans don't really need more than what they already have. However, they always want more than what they have because there is the instinctive urge to compete with the other members of the species for status, as higher status results in better reproductive success. Almost nobody understands that but it drives everyone's behavior and the sad and extremely self-destructive (for the species) result is that people always want more and more no matter how much you give them, not because they really need it but because they just want to be better off than the other guy.
After the last famine in The Soviet Union immediately after WWII and after Stalin was gone, the needs in Maslow's hierarchy were actually met quite well in the Soviet Union, in many ways even more so than in the US because in a planned economy there is no rat's race to drain all your emotional and intellectual energy away. People didn't have the material possessions that those in the West enjoyed, and the state could and should have done much better in that area (and may not have collapsed in the end if it had) but while people were vaguely aware that in the US there were fancy gadgets that weren't available in the Soviet Union, they didn't know how big the disparity actually was. That's the same reason poor rural people in Bangladesh often top the charts for a happiest population in the world - they are poor but they do not realize how poor they are so they are happy with what they have.
Once the needs in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, humans don't really need more than what they already have. However, they always want more than what they have because there is the instinctive urge to compete with the other members of the species for status, as higher status results in better reproductive success. Almost nobody understands that but it drives everyone's behavior and the sad and extremely self-destructive (for the species) result is that people always want more and more no matter how much you give them, not because they really need it but because they just want to be better off than the other guy.
After the last famine in The Soviet Union immediately after WWII and after Stalin was gone, the needs in Maslow's hierarchy were actually met quite well in the Soviet Union, in many ways even more so than in the US because in a planned economy there is no rat's race to drain all your emotional and intellectual energy away. People didn't have the material possessions that those in the West enjoyed, and the state could and should have done much better in that area (and may not have collapsed in the end if it had) but while people were vaguely aware that in the US there were fancy gadgets that weren't available in the Soviet Union, they didn't know how big the disparity actually was. That's the same reason poor rural people in Bangladesh often top the charts for a happiest population in the world - they are poor but they do not realize how poor they are so they are happy with what they have.