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https://www.studioeight.tv/phpbb/
"It is a good investment" Condoleeza Rice.$2.267 trillion
now they make Donald Duck dolls for Disnay and I betIn the years after the fall of Saigon, as many as 400,000 Southerners who fought or worked for the ousted pro-American regime were rounded up and forced into reeducation camps. Doctors, soldiers, engineers, businessmen—some of the very people who could have helped put the shattered country back together again were instead forced to perform back-breaking menial labor and pen mindless “self-criticism.” After China invaded Vietnam in a brief 1979 border war, anti-Chinese persecutions were stepped up in Ho Chi Minh City, and thousands of Cholon shopkeepers began to trickle out of the country.
Down and Out
The new government took over production and banned all private business. Living standards in Ho Chi Minh City began to plummet—and the trickle of refugees fleeing Vietnam became a torrent. The late 1970’s and 1980s were the darkest period yet for Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh City, which had flourished off the billions of dollars the U.S. pumped into the Southern economy during the war, became dark and silent as poverty tightened its grip on Vietnam. 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia to put a stop to murderous cross-border raids by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rough. The decade-long war that resulted nearly bankrupted Vietnam.
At the same time, a decision to collectivize rice production devastated agriculture, (er yeah, 50% of the arable lans was defoliated and bombed and not fit to grow anything for quite a few years, kerizt!)
and a United States-led trade embargo meant Vietnam had no access to much-needed international aid or capital. As Western nations turned their back on Vietnam, the country also found it increasingly difficult to communicate with the outside world. Thanks to the trade embargo, international telephone and even mail service was limited. As vendors had little to sell and residents had no money to spend, the once-vibrant streets of Ho Chi Minh City emptied out. A million people took their lives in their hands, attempting dangerous escapes by sea or land, desperate to get out of Vietnam.
Renovation and renewal
In 1986, at the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party in Hanoi, the country’s leaders finally took steps to halt Vietnam’s self-destruction. Under a movement known as Doi Moi (Renovation), Vietnam began to move towards a market economy. While Northerners were still brought in to head up State offices and factories, Ho Chi Minh City residents who had never lost their knack—or appetite—for capitalism were finally permitted to open their own businesses.
By the time the U.S. lifted its trade embargo in 1994, the city was leading Vietnam into unprecedented growth and financial stability. Foreign companies like Nike, FedEx, and Coca-Cola rushed in to set up shop; by 1997 Ho Chi Minh City revenue made up a third of the nation’s GDP, and per capita income for Saigon residents was more than triple that of the rest of Vietnam. These figures will only increase in coming years, now that Vietnam and the U.S. have finally ratified a far-reaching trade agreement. Plus, many of the one million southerners who fled Vietnam after 1975 now regularly send money back to relatives they left behind. This private assistance totals more than $2 billion annually - far more than the amount of official international aid Vietanam receives from other nations.
http://www.pbs.org/vietnampassage/City/city.after.html
