Mamdani's grocery stores get an answer from a man who stood in communist Romania's bread lines. New York's Mayor Mamdani has promised city-run grocery stores, and Ovidiu Frusina, born in Bucharest in 1967 under Nicolae Ceausescu, tells Jenny Beth Martin what state-run food actually looked like from the inside: four hours in line for a loaf, retirees up at 2 AM in a line of 500 for two pounds of meat, ration tickets for oil and sugar, and shelves that were full in 1965 and empty by 1985. He lived the free health care: no toilet paper in the hospital, no pain medicine unless the family paid the nurses, and a free appendix surgery that cost a month's pay. He lived the free education: the state decided how many doctors it wanted each year, and the boys who lost went to the army. At 21 the police pulled him out of work and beat him. His crime was writing to his high school sweetheart after she defected to America. His university stood him up in front of 120 classmates and called him a traitor, and a math teacher failed him so he would never become an engineer. He reached America in 1990 and built a life in Houston. The girl he wrote to is his wife and plays violin with the Houston Symphony. Guest: Ovidiu Frusina, born in Bucharest, Romania; computer science graduate, former consulting business owner and father of four, Houston, Texas. Learn more at teapartypatriots.org and jennybethshow.com.
Guest:
Ovidiu Frusina was born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1967 and grew up under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu, in what was by the 1980s the hardest-line communist country in the Warsaw Pact. At 21 he was taken from work by the police and beaten for keeping in touch with a girlfriend who had defected to the United States; his university branded him a traitor in front of his classmates and a failing grade ended his path to engineering. He got a passport in the days after Ceausescu's execution, reached America in 1990, studied computer science at the University of St. Thomas and the University of Houston, ran his own consulting business and raised four children in Houston, Texas. His wife, the girl he wrote to, plays violin with the Houston Symphony.
Key topics:
• Why Romania was never part of the Soviet Union, and how a shoemaker with six years of school became its dictator
• Four hours in line for bread, retirees up at 2 AM in a line of 500 for two pounds of meat, and hot water two hours a morning
• Free education: the state decides it wants 60 doctors, 1,000 students compete, and the boys who lose go to the army
• Free tuition, repaid with three years of assigned work in a village nobody wanted
• Every engineer paid the same: why nobody worked harder, and why the factory bribed the man who counted the parts
• Two million loaves of bread for Bucharest on paper, half that in the ovens
• Free health care: no toilet paper, no pain medicine unless you paid the nurse, and a surgery that cost a month's salary
• Taken from work at 21, slapped by a police captain, and told he knew what he had done
• Stood up before 120 classmates and declared a traitor for writing to a girl who defected
• How his wife and her sister, two of Romania's top violinists, reached Rice University on a tourist visa their parents bribed for
• Priests turned informers, microphones in restaurant vases, and one informer apartment in every stairwell
• Timisoara, December 1989: a revolution that started in a church, and a dictator executed on Christmas Day
• The Kroger store he filmed for his mother, who never believed it was real
• Mayor Mamdani's city-run grocery stores, answered by a man who watched Romania's state stores empty out
• The $75,000 Dacia: eight years of saving, four years of waiting, and a left door that would not close
• The one thing Americans must guard against right now, and what he would tell a 19-year-old today
Timestamps:
00:00 — Cold open: Romania, the hardest-line communist state in the Warsaw Pact
01:51 — Meet Ovidiu Frusina: born in Bucharest in 1967, and why Romania was never Soviet
03:34 — A brutal dictator: how Ceausescu, a shoemaker, took power
07:24 — A society with no street crime, because the police were everywhere
10:03 — The uniform number, four hours in line for bread, and retirees at 2 AM for meat
13:29 — Free education: the exam at 14, the state's quota of doctors, and the army for the boys who lose
17:32 — You do not pay for university; you repay it with three years in a village
19:15 — Every engineer paid the same: why would anyone work harder?
20:59 — A thousand parts with no materials, and the bribe for the man who counts them
25:17 — Free health care: no toilet paper, $10 at the door, lunch for every nurse
29:50 — His own appendicitis at 21, and the free surgery that cost a month's pay
31:44 — Four hours for bread: why young Americans have no idea
32:43 — Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, China; and why France and Denmark are not the answer
39:19 — Asking questions in Ceausescu's Romania: the pressure on a whole family
39:43 — Taken from work at 21 and slapped by a police captain
42:27 — "He is a traitor": stood up before 120 classmates; the failing grade
44:25 — The regime goes after his mother's job and his brother
46:12 — How his wife and her sister, two violinists, reached Rice University
51:02 — America at 23: a Social Security card, two universities, and why church is hard
54:46 — Microphones in the restaurant vase, an informer in every stairwell
59:27 — December 1989: Timisoara, the coup, and Ceausescu executed on Christmas Day
01:02:54 — Three days in the passport line; the visa the American embassy refused
01:03:53 — The Kroger store he filmed for his mother in Romania
01:04:49 — Mayor Mamdani's grocery stores: government has no money, it takes yours
01:08:41 — Who sets the price: materials, labor and profit, or the state
01:09:51 — The $75,000 Dacia: eight years of saving, four years of waiting
01:12:39 — Jeff Bezos, envy, and the kids who want free stuff
01:13:25 — The one thing to guard against: the ideology itself
01:15:01 — What he would tell the 19-year-old he was, and a 19-year-old in America today
01:23:01 — Close: share this episode, vote for liberty this November, iwillsaveamerica.com
Links mentioned:
iwillsaveamerica.com
jennybethshow.com
teapartypatriots.org