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Venezuela’s Woes are Mounting as it turns the Lights Off

SDET said:
I guess you can call it local "representation" if you mean a neighborhood "snitch" organization such as Cuba's Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR).
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Venezuela has the national assembly. In fact the PSUV, the party Maduro is in lost the last election. Venezuela also has local municipal elections, the latest happened in 2013. Venezuela also has communal councils where residents can directly participate in.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Venezuela has the national assembly. In fact the PSUV, the party Maduro is in lost the last election. Venezuela also has local municipal elections, the latest happened in 2013. Venezuela also has communal councils where residents can directly participate in.
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I will have to go there sometime and see. If modeled after Cuba, PCC = PSUV and the communal councils become the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR).
 
SDET said:
I will have to go there sometime and see. If modeled after Cuba, PCC = PSUV and the communal councils become the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR).
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So you now contend that there is local representation in Venezuela?
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Uhhh no. Leader of the movement, sure. "Sole ruler", no.


And thats why the PSUV lost the recent round of national assembly elections...


Actually Chavez was elected by a popular movement and then the cronies from past governments tried to overthrow him in a coup and suspend the constitution and the national assembly.....
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Seriously you are still protecting Chavez? One would have thought that after Chavez decreed that he was going to rule by decree that you would have got it. Or before that with the dictatorship by the constitutional assembly. The removal of all and any checks and balances. From there on it was by all standards a one party system.

'Heil, Hugo'
 
FreedomFromAll said:
Seriously you are still protecting Chavez? One would have thought that after Chavez decreed that he was going to rule by decree that you would have got it.
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Chavez didnt decree that. That is a long standing, legal Venezuelan power that only the National Assembly has.


Or before that with the dictatorship by the constitutional assembly. The removal of all and any checks and balances. From there on it was by all standards a one party system.

'Heil, Hugo'
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You mean the assembly that was brought about by legal means, and popularly voted upon, and the constitution that came out of said assembly was then popularly vote upon? That one?
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Chavez didnt decree that. That is a long standing, legal Venezuelan power that only the National Assembly has.



You mean the assembly that was brought about by legal means, and popularly voted upon, and the constitution that came out of said assembly was then popularly vote upon? That one?
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No I dont mean that all. But good try.
 
Anthony60 said:
What? Socialism failed again? I can't believe it!
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And yet, Democratic Socialism is a huge success in Bolivia. What other country can claim to have increased economic growth, reduced poverty and inequality, balanced the budget and have 'rainy day' fund?


"....According to a report by the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, “Bolivia has grown much faster over the last eight years than in any period over the past three and a half decades.” The benefits of such growth have been felt by the Bolivian people: under Morales, poverty has declined by 25% and extreme poverty has declined by 43%; social spending has increased by more than 45%; the real minimum wage has increased by 87.7%; and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean has praised Bolivia for being “one of the few countries that has reduced inequality”..."
Evo Morales has proved that socialism doesn’t damage economies | Ellie Mae O’Hagan | Opinion | The Guardian



"...Its [Bolivia] economy grew an estimated 6.5 percent last year, among the strongest rates in the region. Inflation has been kept in check. The budget is balanced, and once-crippling government debt has been slashed. And the country has a rainy-day fund of foreign reserves so large — for the size of its economy — that it could be the envy of nearly every other country in the world..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/17/w...a-as-economy-rises-from-instability.html?_r=0​
 
Southern Dad said:
Socialism is wonderful until you run out of other people's money.
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Or...capitalism is wonderful until you run out of people's resources.

60-year-old royalty payment agreements with oil giants Philips Petroleum and ExxonMobil allowed the corporations to pay as little as 1% in taxes on the tens of billions of dollars in revenues they were earning from their extraction of Venezuelan oil.
 
Moot said:
And yet, Democratic Socialism is a huge success in Bolivia. What other country can claim to have increased economic growth, reduced poverty and inequality, balanced the budget and have 'rainy day' fund?


"....According to a report by the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, “Bolivia has grown much faster over the last eight years than in any period over the past three and a half decades.” The benefits of such growth have been felt by the Bolivian people: under Morales, poverty has declined by 25% and extreme poverty has declined by 43%; social spending has increased by more than 45%; the real minimum wage has increased by 87.7%; and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean has praised Bolivia for being “one of the few countries that has reduced inequality”..."
Evo Morales has proved that socialism doesn’t damage economies | Ellie Mae O’Hagan | Opinion | The Guardian



"...Its [Bolivia] economy grew an estimated 6.5 percent last year, among the strongest rates in the region. Inflation has been kept in check. The budget is balanced, and once-crippling government debt has been slashed. And the country has a rainy-day fund of foreign reserves so large — for the size of its economy — that it could be the envy of nearly every other country in the world..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/17/w...a-as-economy-rises-from-instability.html?_r=0​
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Your link suggests the 'success' is due to his confiscation of the energy industry and the high price of commodities and natural gas. Sounds a lot like the early years of Chavez 'socialist miracle' Look, I could make a success of myself if I went around stealing other people successful businesses too. Its not like this socialist creep is 'creating' anything. He is a thief living off the wealth, productivity and creativity of others--just like every other socialist that has ever walked the earth. It will 'work' until he has milked dry what he has stolen. Then he, like Chavez, will be ignored by the leftists who now hold him up as their ideological champion.
 
David_N said:
Yes they did!
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They should calll their importers and tell them they need their " supply " back then

Seems like a simple MMT fix . So whats stopping them ?
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Well then which one are you referring to?
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In other words you are demanding that I choose from your list. I think there is a name for that type of fallacy. I suppose it doesnt matter to you that I wasnt saying what you want me to say. You sound like Chavez. Make it look legal and then it is right? We will all just believe.

You can pretend that it matters that a controlled public and a controlled legislation equals democracy, but you are only fooling yourself.

Chavez was a piece of **** dictator that died. Get over it. ANd really if thats the knid of government you want, well damn it isnt at all democratic socialism. Looks more like authoritarian state socialism.
 
Fletch said:
Your link suggests the 'success' is due to his confiscation of the energy industry and the high price of commodities and natural gas. Sounds a lot like the early years of Chavez 'socialist miracle' Look, I could make a success of myself if I went around stealing other people successful businesses too. Its not like this socialist creep is 'creating' anything. He is a thief living off the wealth, productivity and creativity of others--just like every other socialist that has ever walked the earth. It will 'work' until he has milked dry what he has stolen. Then he, like Chavez, will be ignored by the leftists who now hold him up as their ideological champion.
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I think the success of Bolivia was largely to due to the lack of WTO, IMF and US interference. Oil and gas is a natural resource made by nature...not people. So who was Morales stealing from when he nationalized Bolivia's oil and gas industry?

Before Chavez got into office, Venezuela had 20 to 30 thirty years of high inflation, an 80% poverty rate, high crime and use of military force and over 50% of business and private capital leaving the country. And that's when Venezuela's foreign policies were US friendly.
 
Moot said:
I think the success of Bolivia was largely to due to the lack of WTO, IMF and US interference. Oil and gas is a natural resource made by nature...not people. So who was Morales stealing from when he nationalized Bolivia's oil and gas industry?
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Those resources may exist in nature but they are not discovered, produced and refined by nature. Morales did none of those things. He simply waited for someone else to do the work, then he rode in and stole what they produced.

Before Chavez got into office, Venezuela had 20 to 30 thirty years of high inflation, an 80% poverty rate, high crime and use of military force and over 50% of business and private capital leaving the country. And that's when Venezuela's foreign policies were US friendly.
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And after Chavez?
 
TheDemSocialist said:
So you now contend that there is local representation in Venezuela?
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Only in the sense that candy laced with rat poison is "food". The CDR in Cuba is a instrument of repression. It's a local neighborhood organization to initiate criminal charges against anyone deemed to be a risk to the state.
 
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SDET said:
Only in the sense that candy laced with rat poison is "food". The CDR in Cuba is a instrument of repression. It's a local neighborhood organization to initiate criminal charges against anyone deemed to be a risk to the state.
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One thing that Venezuela is not is a dictatorship, sure some of the things it does are a bit shady but it not a dictatorship where opponents are locked up and gagged, at worst you get less airtime on television. The socialists gained power democratically and have already lost control of the legislature to Capriles's party and he will most likely win in the next election whether that is the scheduled one or the recall one that might be called because well over a million people have signed an official petition to do so.
 
Moot said:
I think the success of Bolivia was largely to due to the lack of WTO, IMF and US interference. Oil and gas is a natural resource made by nature...not people. So who was Morales stealing from when he nationalized Bolivia's oil and gas industry?
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Bolivia is doing okay simply because Morales's government has a budget surplus, he is keeping government expenses down. Same thing happened in Brazil when Lula became president- then they moved away form it and now Brazil is suffering again. Venezuela on the other hand, has got massive subsidies, price controls and a two-tiered currency system.
 
Fletch said:
Those resources may exist in nature but they are not discovered, produced and refined by nature. Morales did none of those things. He simply waited for someone else to do the work, then he rode in and stole what they produced.

And after Chavez?
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So labor gives the resource value? Does labor give humans value? Apparently, Morales thought human labor has value and raised the tax on foreign oil extraction to pay for raising the minimum wage 87% and that's when the economy started to grow. The Bolivian economy grew more in 8 years under Morales than it had in all the previous 30 years combined.

I think countries have a sovereign right over their natural resources....and that a 1% tax on oil revenue was theft of Venezuela's natural resources, as well.

So what gives a foreign country or corporation the right to steal another countries resources?
 
PoS said:
Bolivia is doing okay simply because Morales's government has a budget surplus, he is keeping government expenses down. Same thing happened in Brazil when Lula became president- then they moved away form it and now Brazil is suffering again. Venezuela on the other hand, has got massive subsidies, price controls and a two-tiered currency system.
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Bolivia didn't have a budget surplus before Morales took office. In fact, it had a huge debt...which is why it's so amazing that Morales balanced the budget while also increasing spending on social programs such as healthcare and infrastructure. They say he was more pragmatic than ideological.

Venezuela is a mess. I don't know what the answer is for them.
 
Moot said:
Bolivia didn't have a budget surplus before Morales took office. In fact, it had a huge debt...which is why it's so amazing that Morales balanced the budget while also increasing spending on social programs such as healthcare and infrastructure. They say he was more pragmatic than ideological.

Venezuela is a mess. I don't know what the answer is for them.
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The answer is pretty simple: balance the budget. Every single country that has a balanced budget or has a surplus is doing well. Sadly, Venezuela has got this socialist mentality of providing subsidies for their poor by controlling the economy. That has never worked.
 
Governments fail because of poor management regardless of the economic system in play. Venezuela simply has fewer options for recovering from poor management than, say, Greece or Detroit.
 
who would have thought an economic model which amounts to:

step 1) demonize entrepreneurs
step 2) tax aforementioned entrepreneurs to the point of ruin
step 3) create an environment where living off government benefits is financially preferable to working
step 4) maintain power by endlessly promising ever-more benefits funded by ever-fewer tax paying workers


would result in a failed state...


Lol-Face-Animated-Gif-08.gif
 
FreedomFromAll said:
In other words you are demanding that I choose from your list. I think there is a name for that type of fallacy. I suppose it doesnt matter to you that I wasnt saying what you want me to say. You sound like Chavez. Make it look legal and then it is right? We will all just believe.

You can pretend that it matters that a controlled public and a controlled legislation equals democracy, but you are only fooling yourself.

Chavez was a piece of **** dictator that died. Get over it. ANd really if thats the knid of government you want, well damn it isnt at all democratic socialism. Looks more like authoritarian state socialism.
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Soooo you have nothing but are just going to repeat these falsehoods?
 
It won't be long now before an extremist radical faction in the ilk of the Tupamaro seize power in Venezuela, seizing upon the unrest to manipulate the populace into enslaving itself further............
 
PoS said:
The answer is pretty simple: balance the budget. Every single country that has a balanced budget or has a surplus is doing well. Sadly, Venezuela has got this socialist mentality of providing subsidies for their poor by controlling the economy. That has never worked.
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Singapore for years has run surpluses (this year they dipped into deficit).

Germany, Norway and South Korea all run surpluses.

Canada did for about a dozen years before Harper took office. Since they started running deficits, things have gone downhill.

Sound like pretty good countries to me.
 
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