Vladimir Putin learns the wrong lesson from the Soviet Union's collapse

As I was watching the opening ceremony for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, a commentator said that Vladimir Putin thought the collapse and break-up of the Soviet Union was devastating, or something to that effect, and that Russia lost a lot of "good Russians." 

Bizarreness of that statement put aside, it deflects from real analysis of the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991.

What we should make of the Soviet Union's collapse was that we saw the complete and utter collapse of a nation based on an idea: Socialism. 

The "former glory of the Soviet Union" was no glory at all because socialism -- no matter how many years and decades it will take -- always plants the seeds for economic destruction. So going back to it would be like a "dog going back to its vomit" (Proverbs 26:11), and fool repeating his folly.

One other point here.

We are not unlike the Soviet Union.

As Thomas Woods explained in his 2009 book "Meltdown": "[the U.S. Federal Reserve System] is dedicated to central economic planning, the great discredited idea of the twentieth century. Except instead of planning the production of steel and concrete, as in the Old Soviet Union, it plans money and interest rates, with consequences that necessarily reverberate throughout the economy."

We are in the midst of a grand experiment that will end in nothing less than devastation for a lot of people. As I explained in previous statuses**, the time for a "soft landing" was over a decade ago. We should end our foolishness now to avoid an even harder landing later.

**Originally written as a Facebook status

Thomas Sowell on What Fascists, Socialists, and Leftists Have In Common

What socialism, fascism and other ideologies of the left have in common is an assumption that some very wise people — like themselves — need to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat.

Thomas Sowell, Socialist or Fascist?

Ron Paul says corporate medicine not much better than socialized medicine - The Hill's Healthwatch

Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) said the current healthcare system is overly corporate and not much better than a socialized healthcare system during a town hall in Meredith, New Hampshire on Sunday.

Paul, a physician, said he began practicing medicine in the 1950s before Medicare and Medicaid, so the government had a minimal role in the healthcare system. He said that since President Lyndon Johnson introduced the idea of a federal role in healthcare costs have skyrocketed and the system has become controlled by corporations instead of the government.

Ron Paul says corporate medicine not much better than socialized medicine - The Hill's Healthwatch

Video: Hayek on Socialism

Gary North on Socialism

"If something isn't done about it, they will become totally dependent on the State, at precisely the point in history when the state is about to go bankrupt because everyone is demanding more than it, or the taxpayers, can fulfill." Gary North, Inherit the Earth

Ben Bernanke Admits He is a Central Planner

I encourage EVERYONE who visits my blog to watch this supremely revealing video.

Ben Bernanke, the FED chairman, and one of the men prolonging our current economic crisis, is a SELF-ADMITTED CENTRAL PLANNER. Socialism over in Russia failed for a reason. As Thomas E. Woods once explained, socialism in Russia involved the planning of the steel industries. In America we have a Federal Reserve that plans interest rates and produces dollars.

After you watch the video, feel free to download these short documents called "The Cliches of Socialism." There are plenty of them. In fact, there are 76.

Another good book to download is the "Inflation Primer" offered by the Ludwig Von Mises institute.

BONUS: Video critiquing socialism from a Biblical worldview.