acd1357

The factories went bankrupt because of corruption as far as I know. An often cited scheme in the press was that the management will buy raw materials at higher than normal prices and sell the products at low prices, of course in exchange for bribes. Other sectors of the economy were similarly brought down in various ways. Trade was not done only with the Eastern Bloc, so you can’t blame everything on the loss of those markets. The people who wanted democracy didn’t anticipate all that corruption and lack of accountability.

Buy directly from the publisher’s website. Only O’Reilly doesn’t sell books, they have only an expensive subscription. Manning puts your name and email at the bottom of every page. Apress and Packt for example don’t. There is no DRM. After Thanksgiving there are big discounts. Packt’s sale is still ongoing - $5 an ebook. Apress’s books are only $7 after Thanksgiving, I think both for ebooks and print.