Does anyone live there? I'm interested to see if there's actual use of bitcoins atm, which if it happens at a decent scale would be a landmark cryptoeconomic achievement.
Venezuela – socialist paradise on the verge of collapse
- Thread starter PedroMendez
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Actually I read an article that is becoming more and more popular till the point that instead of dollarization, some analist forsee a "bitcoinization" of the economy. Also mining bitcoins is growing and growing
The thing about bitcoin mining is a great example of the absurdity of certain policies. It was/is profitable due to electricity subsidise while the country struggles with energy shortages. The regime/crime tried to crack down on it. Still bitcoin is growing overall in Latin America because people rightfully don't trust government institutions. There are also schemes in Brazil to avoid import taxes and the technology might sooner or later be tested as way to secure property rights in some areas, where the government is weak and corrupt.
Venezuelans go to polls in vote seen as gauge of Maduro's grip on power
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ote-maduro-grip-on-power-opposition-elections
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ote-maduro-grip-on-power-opposition-elections
wow...and PSUV still wins so much?
Election fraud is doing that.
MUD should have never participated. The point where elections are useful has passed when Maduro fecked the parliament.
They are just giving legitimacy to an election, that wasn't fair, free or meaningful. Bunch of idiots.
Ho they commited fraud? they changed the rules? or they lied straight with the counting of the votes?
The competition wasn't fair, they changed the location of many voting stations to places, where MUD voters wouldn't go and the participation rate is pretty high, which indicate that they added votes to create legitimacy. Additionally you have many other things like people who are employed by the government or certain crony companies are pressured to vote for Maduro. Harrssment and imprisonment of opposition leaders. Gerrymandering. Censorship. Violence against opposition gatherings.
It's also questionable if people are even arsed to vote for the opposition, when the result is pointless anyway. When MUD swept the last parliament elections, Maduro just deprived parliament of any remaining power. Chavismo was never democratic in the western sense. It followed the tradition of Peronism. It's to some extend similar to authoritarian democracy in Turkey or Russia. Mobilisation only exists to preserve power, not to challenge the government.
During the last year's of extreme crisis any pretence towards democracy was ditched. It's an open dictatorship nowadays.
The opposition is a mess. They struggle to maintain unity and frequently make big strategic mistakes. Taking part in these fake election was one of them.
I wonder whats Venezuela GDP from before and today
Before Maduro, before Chavez? Maduro is a mess, and Chavez was a despot but the later did better things too from the predecessors, specially for the least favorable ones
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/latest-us-denounces-venezuelan-elections-50517786
Simply dismissals of well the Venezuela's aren't like us 'western democracies'' is both lazy and bigoted.
I'm not trying to stick up for the Venezuela government(They clearly aren't helping the people of Venezuela at the moment) but Western democracy has shown us footage of armed police beating people and tearing away voting booth, half of a powerful elite claiming that a election was stolen from them and that their President is working for Russia(Although clearly a safe enough President to vote in favour of increased military spending)and the country I live in at the moment has now in two elections been done for election fraud(Not to mentioned their last campaign bullied activist to the point where he sadly took his own life) .
Simply dismissals of well the Venezuela's aren't like us 'western democracies'' is both lazy and bigoted.
Chavez and Maduro are doing the same things. The difference is that Maduro lacks the necessary charisma for caudillismo and the external circumstances changed.
Since the 60s Venezuela has turned into a rentier economy based on oil. In the 90s this system was in permanent crisis, which allowed Chavez to make inroads. The people were fed up. Yet instead of changing the model, he doubled down. He went from "oil is the most important factor of the economy" to "oil is the only factor in the economy". He destroyed everything else with his policies. Yes Venezuela was always an unequal and unjust society, but destroying the (small) middle class did horrific damage. It's hard to overstate the proportions of this crisis and it's entirely down to bad policy decisions. Only counties that are hit by (civil) war or huge natural disasters suffer from similarly devastating economic developments. This is unprecedented in times of peace.
The commodity boom of the 00s allowed chavez to use the money to pay rents to gain support. Sadly many Latin American countries did the same (e.g. Lula in Brazil). Instead of reforming their counties in exceptional fortunate circumstances, they laid the groundwork for the inevitable crisis.
When the current crisis continues for much longer, the damage will be permanent and haunt the country for a long time.
Parts of the elite left in the early 00s. In a second wave many skilled workers followed in the late 00s. In the early 2010s the desire for any educated person to leave increased significantly and since 2015 any person who is able to leave is doing just that. Add malnutrition and the health crisis. Add the lack of education and any investment in competitive economic structures. The country is going to need decades to recover from Chavez & Maduro.
The country was in a bad state before they took over. Their predecessors deserve extremely harsh criticism. They were corrupt, incompetent and self-serving. They were still 1000x better than the socialist experiment that followed.
No doubt about you say, but the ones before Chavez did worse, being to gain the support of the poor families, by self interest, whatever...but he developed the less favourables way more than the ones before. And please, do not take that as a support of Chavez, he did terrible things, but the ones before as well and they only fed the rich. And yes, Chavez had charisma but as well he was way more capable than Maduro, even if we consider him as dictator.
And Brazil is another story, though is similar in some aspects and it has lots of corruption, is the same thing, the ones before they did far worse and never cared of the poor people and in a difference of Venezuela, they improved A LOT the education system, probably because Brazil can´t compare in resources with Venezuela. They are in crisis as well but not nearly that deep and with the "boom times", they managed to do certain good infrastructures and education.
Spain, Portugal and Greece had as well boom times and then a deep crisis (Greece is far worse than Brazil at the scale before/after) and we are not talking in that terms.
Venezuela was a middle income country in Latin America and now they are collectively starving. So yes, they were far better of before Chavez came to power. Especially the very poor people.
The only people who are better off now are those who are part of their apparatus to maintain power. Everyone else's is worse off. Few boom years where you can hand out generous rents don't change that.
What are the policy differences between Chavez and Maduro? Non.
They ruined every single sector of the economy - including the oil industry (chronic underinvestment lead significant output decline). Consequently you end up with almost nothing.
Brazil is different because Lula also did a couple of good things and was far more nuanced in his economic policies (first and foremost because he continued the course of FHC). He still made the mistake to put most of his eggs in the "commodity basket".
The only people who are better off now are those who are part of their apparatus to maintain power. Everyone else's is worse off. Few boom years where you can hand out generous rents don't change that.
What are the policy differences between Chavez and Maduro? Non.
They ruined every single sector of the economy - including the oil industry (chronic underinvestment lead significant output decline). Consequently you end up with almost nothing.
Brazil is different because Lula also did a couple of good things and was far more nuanced in his economic policies (first and foremost because he continued the course of FHC). He still made the mistake to put most of his eggs in the "commodity basket".
Some of the responses, but that's twitter.Tweet
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There is also prove that the local elections for Bolivar were crucially altered, so the Maduro candidate won narrowly. They just added ~2000 votes despite knowing that the signed actas are going to show the discrepancy.
It won't make a difference, but oh well.
The opposition is in shambles as well. It's one of those cases where just being against the bad guy, doesn't make one the good guy. Corrupt patriarchs like Ramos allup are one reason why Chavismo exists in the first place. He is the kind of figure that Maduro needs to stay in power.
That is what I was thinking but I am really cautious to mention. Maduro is the worst. Seriously. Not smart, no charisma at all, corrupt, dictator, etc... But the few things that I read about the opposition does not give me any confidence. Never liked Capriles for example.
I think Venezuela is pretty fecked with whoever rules, but I think is better a change. Can't be worse, can be?
You know you are fecked, when Angola, a nation struggling with aftermath of civil war and famine doesn't want to get compared to Venezuela.
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A good book on the issue is from Raul Gallegos: Crude Nation how oil riches ruined Venezuela.
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http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/23/populism-is-coming-for-latin-america-in-2018/amp/
That article provides a very good roundup of coming elections in Latin America and the danger of another populist turn left/right. It's incredible depressing, considering how often Latin Americans vote for populists. In-between those neverending waves of idiots, centrist have to clean up the mess, just to get replaced by another group of idiots who promise the world.
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A good book on the issue is from Raul Gallegos: Crude Nation how oil riches ruined Venezuela.
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http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/23/populism-is-coming-for-latin-america-in-2018/amp/
That article provides a very good roundup of coming elections in Latin America and the danger of another populist turn left/right. It's incredible depressing, considering how often Latin Americans vote for populists. In-between those neverending waves of idiots, centrist have to clean up the mess, just to get replaced by another group of idiots who promise the world.
Honestly @PedroMendez I like your posts but christ you need to lean some latin american history.
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You might want to stop reading your english propaganda pieces and turn to serious journalists and academics. Obviously, many of them speak Spanish and most original content is in this language. So you might struggle with this.
Or you can go back to posting government propaganda, that you don't even understand.
There is also an ignore button, that you can press. If you are bothered by not being able to see this thread, just open a new one. I promise that I'll stay out of it.
Or you can go back to posting government propaganda, that you don't even understand.
There is also an ignore button, that you can press. If you are bothered by not being able to see this thread, just open a new one. I promise that I'll stay out of it.
Funny story, back in the 90s when I was finishing my Economics degree in the UK I wrote my dissertation on Latin America. Essentially, looking back at the XXth Century what had happened, what had we learned (or not) and thus what would happen next. In a nutshell, I argued the prevalent Washington Consensus policies wouldn't deliver what was expected of them, not widely, deeply or quickly enough. That by the early 00s there would be a series of economic crises prompting the whole continent to switch to the left in their search for answers. They wouldn't find them of course and, with all magic formulas exhausted, the tension and divide created by the "them and us" (not just left vs. right) rhetoric would invariably lead to violence.
I only got a Pass (which took me down one notch from 2:1 to 2:2 overall) and was pretty much told it was all nonsense and rubbish as an Economics exercise as it was based on analysing history, culture and politics while there wasn't a single graph in the entire document
It was lost on them that my entire point was that Economics as a social science should contemplate all others as you can't device solutions in isolation from the local context.
I only got a Pass (which took me down one notch from 2:1 to 2:2 overall) and was pretty much told it was all nonsense and rubbish as an Economics exercise as it was based on analysing history, culture and politics while there wasn't a single graph in the entire document
It was lost on them that my entire point was that Economics as a social science should contemplate all others as you can't device solutions in isolation from the local context.It took me a year in college to realize that you need to give professors what they want. I don't mind writing "the sky is red" even if it's blue. If my professor has a "sky is red" belief, that's what he's gonna get. Doesn't change what I believe. It's the problem now in colleges where it's not a chance to exchange ideas, but an exercise in who you can convince to think like you.Funny story, back in the 90s when I was finishing my Economics degree in the UK I wrote my dissertation on Latin America. Essentially, looking back at the XXth Century what had happened, what had we learned (or not) and thus what would happen next. In a nutshell, I argued the prevalent Washington Consensus policies wouldn't deliver what was expected of them, not widely, deeply or quickly enough. That by the early 00s there would be a series of economic crises prompting the whole continent to switch to the left in their search for answers. They wouldn't find them of course and, with all magic formulas exhausted, the tension and divide created by the "them and us" (not just left vs. right) rhetoric would invariably lead to violence.
I only got a Pass (which took me down one notch from 2:1 to 2:2 overall) and was pretty much told it was all nonsense and rubbish as an Economics exercise as it was based on analysing history, culture and politics while there wasn't a single graph in the entire document
Yeah, but I'm stubborn like that. It probably didn't help that I had no time for my tutor (a Development Economics eminence).
A mate was going to take a year out and go work in Uganda. Early days of the internet, so I arranged a meeting with my tutor as he had done some work there for the World Bank visiting several times in the last three years.
He started rolling out all the stats and I stopped him saying my mate was going to LIVE there, he wanted some indicators on what it would be like, not GDP and inflation. "How would I know? I just go from the airport to the [fancy] hotel and back".
Poor Ugandans.
The conclusion must have been that the voters are slightly daft.
With few exceptions nationalism and state-led economic development seem to be like a boomerang. Regardless how hard you throw it away, it always comes back. Just a matter of time until someone proposes ISI as panacea again.
AMLO leading (narrowly) the polls in Mexico...that's just scary.....de kirchner won her senate mandate, which might allow her another comeback...Brazil could theoretically end up with a race between Bolsonaro and Lula. The list of idiots who could win something is almost endless. Some of these guys would make trump look quite okay.
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That's almost an oxymoron.
No before Chavez
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I don't know much about this country so apologies if this has already been discussed. I came across an article which mentioned what is known as the "Caracazo" in 1989. Seems that was an economic disaster which led to protests and hundreds or thousands of deaths depending on the source. Anybody know anything about that apart from what's on Wikipedia ?
Just tell her you like Socialism because socialist countries like Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden, etc are fecking awesome.
The head of that "reporter" would explode.. can't compute can't compute boomm!!!
The head of that "reporter" would explode.. can't compute can't compute boomm!!!
In the least surprising election result since Putin last won, Maduro enjoyed a large victory. This will not end well...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...cted-amid-outcry-over-vote-idUSKCN1IL05U?il=0
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...cted-amid-outcry-over-vote-idUSKCN1IL05U?il=0
Poor country, the number of Venezuelans who are coming these years to Spain is immense. They escape as they can. In addition to the shortage of supplies, they stand out the street violence above all. Zapatero, the former president of Spain is making a fool of himself in Caracas by supporting the regime. For what they say the army is on Maduro´s side. I imagine they will be until the situation reaches the limit and in that moment Diosdado Cabello will step forward.
"You can have healthcare without socialism."
Their obsession with socialism is boring, and the implication that socialism's innumerous flaws somehow makes everything in America great is annoying.
Of course you can have healthcare without socialism, just like in the US where you have the freedom to choose between getting sick or going hungry.
I very highly recommend this read from InsightCrime.org. They're a combination of academic research and journalism, and for me the go to place for research on organised crime. They spent three years compiling a seven part report on why Venezuela is a mafia state and how that contributes hugely toward what we're seeing right now in Venezuela.
https://www.insightcrime.org/investigations/venezuela-mafia-state/
https://www.insightcrime.org/investigations/venezuela-mafia-state/
On average Venezuelans have lost 40 pounds in the last two years
How long between pics?
I saw a report as far back as 2016 saying a pack of condoms was as much as $700.
No idea, sorry.
Maybe someone finds out in the reddit thread, https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/94naww/venezuela_before_the_crisis_vs_now/ but can't be bothered to read all of that (or any).
Maybe someone finds out in the reddit thread, https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/94naww/venezuela_before_the_crisis_vs_now/ but can't be bothered to read all of that (or any).
Norway, Sweden and Finland are not Socialist.
Before you reply and disagree, think about the word you have used and its actual definition and see how that doesnt in anyway apply to those countires.