Yeah it was so successful that people would line up around the block for bananas the one time a year. Or when boots came into the store you'd pick up whatever size you could, as you'd trade later.

(true stories)

Again:

> The USSR has tried this. Lets not.

would rule out things like "going to the moon" or "building roads". It's a pretty useless rubric.

I am not doubting the USSR fucked all sorts of things up. I'm doubting that that inherently means those things must be impossible.

Updated - since my text was confusing. The subject at hand is subsidized grocery stores, the USSR is an example of failed centrally planned subsidized grocery stores.

The text isn't confusing; the conclusion you draw is just unsupported.

The USSR is an example of many failed things. That they failed at those things does not mean those things cannot be done.

If it wasn't confusing what made you bring up the space program and fixing roads?

I was offering a tangible example of where the thing being proposed was a failure.

> If it wasn't confusing what made you bring up the space program and fixing roads?

They are examples of the USSR failing at a possible thing. They illustrate my critique of your claim.

My fil owns a bunch of grocery stores in Russia. The gov't still essentially subsidizes the cost of basic goods to keep prices low for the poor. Because of this, even the poorest have access to what they need, and they worship Putin because of it - "he makes sure we're taken care of". Obviously we could get into the corruption, why they're so poor in the first place, etc, but it is clearly working pretty well.

Also in Israel, stable basic products (like milk) have a government mandated pricing, not even subsidized. It’s a good idea in its simplistic form, and works well most of the times, but once every 2 years you get a crunch where the manufacturers just decline to produce products at a loss, so we don’t have milk or butter for 2 weeks.