God bless Citgo

9/2/2017 2:42:42 PM

^^I think its a stretch for you to call Chavez Jesus Christ. His legacy is definitely in the image of christ, but he also did some violent things so I'd hold off on that.

9/3/2017 1:04:40 PM

Quote :

"Venezuela has announced that it will be donating US$5 million to help with recovery efforts in areas devastated by Harvey, particularly Houston and Corpus Christi, Texas, according to Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza."

LoL I'm pretty sure the check is going to bounce.

No, let's not use the money to import the food needed to feed Venezuelans that have been starving for months, let's use it to help relatively rich fat Americans which have missed maybe a couple meals.

9/3/2017 11:12:35 PM

This, of course, is the main cause of Venezuela's problems. Chavez and Maduro destroyed the non-oil economy. They can't blame anyone else for that. That was all them. When they did it, people didn't mind so much, because the oil price went up, driving up the oil export revenue enough to more than cover the collapse in non-oil exports. Of course, it did that even while oil production and thus oil exports were also falling due to mismanagement.

9/9/2017 9:59:36 AM

Please tell me how and why you think they destroyed all of the other industries.

9/9/2017 12:51:58 PM

Food industries were destroyed by price controls. The other industries were destroyed by currency mismanagement (inflation, currency controls, capital controls, etc), high taxes, perverse labor regulations.

That is the how. The why is easy too: for political expediency. Configuring systems so political supporters profit and everyone else is ruined will tend to boost the financial resources of supporters. Currency controls allowed the politically connected to buy currency at the official rates and sell it at the black market rate, for example.

There is also a touch of ideology to the "why". Giving millions of dollars in price supports for the poor requires money from somewhere.

9/9/2017 11:37:29 PM

Where did you get that information? Sounds like the typical nonsense being spouted by capitalists.

Quote :

"It is hard to get to the facts of Venezuela when it is arrayed against a barrage of lies. Gonzalez presumptions are based on falsities, which is why he is led to making gross caricatures of the Bolivarian revolution. Gonzalez news sources are pro-imperialist outlets such as the Miami Herald, the Economist, The Washington Post, CNN, CNBC and the New York Times. Somehow Gonzalez is not deterred by their obvious agenda of regime change. They are simply not reliable enough sources to substantiate any of his arguments, but he treats all their claims as good coin."

that fits you

Quote :

"Food industries were destroyed by price controls."

No they weren't. They were annoyed by price controls. Many of the items that are short now were not even under price controls and price controls were lifted to bring back incentive but private companies are still holding out. The reason they can hold out is because they are foreign countries who can make more money by collaborating to collapse Venezuela over the course of 3-5 years, then go back and make unfair profits once the american government has been put in place.

That same thing can be said about other industries. Capitalists have quit the game.

Quote :

"We are given a picture of a country on the brink of starvation, with people eating stray animals or their neighbours' pets. One news source even reported people hunting pigeons vii. It needs to be stressed that there is not an overall shortage of food in Venezuela. Venezuelans continue to face an extremely stressful situation, but it is not a humanitarian disaster. As recently as 2015, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation declared that it had nearly eradicated hunger. For years, Venezuela has been the focus of international attention from delegations and alternative media for its “food sovereignty” experiment, which has had some positive success, despite the lack of industrialisation of agriculture. Hunger has been an historic problem for Venezuela, as it is for much of Latin America and the Global South. Attempts to diversify Venezuela's economy have gone backwards, with 95% of foreign earnings coming from the sale of oil. Venezuela's shift to an oil oriented economy meant its agrarian sector collapsed during the 1930s and again in the 1960s with campesinos forming a mass semi-proletariat urban poor concentrated in the cities. With the austerity of the 1990s, Venezuelans did face hunger. When Chavez was elected in 1999, over half the population faced hunger according to UN standards. Food imports were long out of reach for the poor majority. The country has struggled to turn this around. Venezuela is now self-sufficient in root crops, fruit and vegetables, but its food and medicine supply are controlled by twenty private corporations. Christina Schiavoni, a PhD researcher on Venezuela's food security and William Camacara, a political activist with the New York Bolivarian Circle observed: The two most common arguments of the distribution companies are that a) the regulated prices set by the government to ensure accessibility are too low, providing a disincentive to distributors and b) with the plummeting of oil prices, insufficient dollars are available for import of necessary primary materials. When Venezuelan economist and Universidad Simón Bolívar professor Pasqualina Curcio put these claims to the test in her extensive investigation of the country’s current economic situation, she had some interesting findings. First, several of the missing products have not been regulated since 2010, and among those that are regulated, the government has raised prices in an effort to incentivize distributors several times recently, but this has not resulted in increased availability. Second, the shortages began to intensify in 2013, before oil prices plummeted and while dollars were still readily available. Even once oil prices dropped and dollars became less available, the government continued to prioritize dollars for food import, and by their own accounting, the production levels of Venezuela’s major food companies have been stable or have even increased in that time. Curcio also found a correlation between intensity of food shortages and politically important moments, such as the lead-up to elections. Could it be that the shortages are manufactured? Many food sovereignty activists see it as no coincidence that Polar, the country’s largest food company, responsible for many of the items missing from shelves, is owned by a well-known member of the political opposition to the government.viii The government has not abandoned the working class. The first thing to note is that the food queues are at food distribution networks initiated by the government, not private supermarkets. The government has initiated a partnership between the communes and cooperatives in the form of local Provisioning and Production Committees (CLAPs), driven by volunteer labour. They have been effective at overcoming some of these problems and have kept the government's Mercados stocked, but there have been bottlenecks in the distribution of goods. While there are shortages of specific items such as toilet paper and soap, there is not a shortage of food – and no one is eating their pets. As the depiction of a widely hated government is completely distorted, so are the reports of food shortages. Abby Martin, correspondent for Telesur, visited both middle class areas and the barrios of Caracas in July this year. As she reported, there is an abundance of all sorts of food. The corporations responsible for shortages halt production in order to extort the government for subsidies. Of course if the government nationalised them – wouldn't that be “socialism from above”?ix"

9/10/2017 1:53:54 PM

Fascinating theory. But it doesn't really pass muster with me. It just isn't plausible to me that 100% of the capital owners in Venezuela were willing to bankrupt themselves just to make Chavez look bad. After-all, even if just one business acted rationally and perused profit above all else, as their "competitors" withdraw from the market and destroy their own capital, that one business will reap massive profits as consumer prices skyrocket from the shortage and input prices plummet, capital prices plummet, labor prices plummet, and real-estate prices plummet. Those massive profits can easily fuel a massive surge of investment to dramatically increase output, quickly replacing all the production lost when their anti-Chavez "competitors" quit.

9/11/2017 9:07:10 PM

That might be true if Venezuela was an island or completely shut off but these companies have shifted their business elsewhere, largely to Colombia.

9/21/2017 3:24:45 PM

^ I don't see how. Due to capital controls, the money would have to be smuggled out to Columbia. Not to mention the land labor and capital would have to have been smuggled out as well. Best I can tell, it seems the machines and robots from the Ford car factory at least were just abandoned to rot in Venezuela. I suspect the same was true for most Venezuelan industries that have collapsed over the past decade.

But, again, nothing stopping the one profit seeking capitalist from buying the now idle land/labor/capital needed to restore full production in whatever industry Venezuela needs restarted...But, they don't, therefore I conclude they cannot, due to the obviously perverse and destructive government policies in terms of currency management, capital controls, labor regulations, business environment, basic law enforcement, pretty much everything a firm needs to produce at all.

9/21/2017 4:55:28 PM

^Refusing to and not being able to are two different things. Its more profitable to "strike" and wait for the government to collapse so you can make a higher profit margin later.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/24/opinions/venezuela-maduro-regime-needs-regional-solution-rubio-opinion/index.html

Regime change comin up

4/25/2018 12:32:29 AM

It is a collective action problem. If we assume that capitalist going on strike would result in regime change, something I certainly do not accept as remotely true, then what we have is a standard textbook case of a collective action problem. Even if you decide to go on strike, you have no way to force me to go on strike too, short of violence. And, in fact, if we assume the regime itself is not destroying the economy by itself, something I certainly do not accept as remotely true, then by your competitors refusing to operate means that now is absolutely the most profitable time to operate there will ever be. You can have the best and brightest workers for minimum wage. The best equipment for basically free. And all the capital you can borrow for next to nothing. And you get to sell the produced goods into a captive market where you enjoy a veritable monopoly for anything you choose to make.

And for what? The hope of one day years later where you may enjoy regime change and be forced to compete against a flood of like minded capitalists for land/labor/and capital in a highly competitive environment where profits will be elusive at best.

As such, to suggest that the capitalists of Venezuela are collectively "on strike" is to suggest that 100% of them all hate the regime enough to sacrifice a fortune in profits right now in the lofty hope of one day securing maybe no profits at all. And since anyone with a bank loan can be a capitalist, that means 100% of the regimes supporters are also on strike. It is simply not credible to believe this. Collective action problems are a rule unto themselves. If your belief of how things work requires voluntarily solving a collective action problem, then your beliefs are not credible.

Meanwhile, we with a modicum of economic understanding have the whole of human history to tell us what the result would be given the policies we know for a fact the regime is imposing: capitalists doing their best to make a profit right now instead loosing their shirts, collapsing output, widespread shortages and unemployment. No magical "strikes" required. Loving the regime and its policies is not going to allow price controls coupled with rampant inflation to not bankrupt your business.

4/29/2018 9:19:45 AM

CIA doing its thing in Venezuela:

https://apnews.com/7d3d2ed7d5ae45dcad96baf0286cbfa6

1/23/2019 1:38:01 PM

^ Odd, the CIA isn't mentioned once in that article. Is it really your belief that there could not possibly be any opposition to Maduro rule that isn't a CIA plot? Are the Democrats planted here by the Russian FSB to undermine Trump's blessed rule too?

1/23/2019 2:19:15 PM

You'd be naive to think CIA and Russian and China and other intel agencies aren't at work here.

It's basically how the world works.

I don't know anything about Venezula politics, but if the basis of going with the oppo leader is that he was selected by their "only democratic body" why can't the same reasoning apply to deposing Trump...

1/23/2019 2:27:51 PM

Quote :

"I don't know anything about Venezula politics, but if the basis of going with the oppo leader is that he was selected by their "only democratic body" why can't the same reasoning apply to deposing Trump..."

https://fair.org/home/a-regime-is-a-government-at-odds-with-the-us-empire/

Quote :

"When, for the media, does a government become a “regime”? The answer, broadly speaking: A country’s political leaders are likely to be called a “regime” when they do not follow US dictates, and are less likely to be categorized as such if they cooperate with the empire."

1/23/2019 2:33:05 PM

Shocking news. People use the word regime when they don't like them. That is why I call it the Trump regime. Big Whoop.

Quote :

"You'd be naive to think CIA and Russian and China and other intel agencies aren't at work here. It's basically how the world works."

I'm not doubting that the CIA is certainly on the ground doing something. But adultswim implied that an opposition leader in the country gave a speech and that this was merely the CIA hard at work, when for all we know the CIA is backing some other opposition, or even bolstering Maduro's regime in an effort to keep the country in a perpetual state of collapse and therefore unable to produce oil which would further suppress prices for US oil exports. Who the hell knows what socialist spy agencies want.

[Edited on January 23, 2019 at 3:16 PM. Reason : .,.]

1/23/2019 3:13:50 PM

Dude

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-23/trump-said-to-intend-to-recognize-guaido-as-venezuela-president

Quote :

"CIA...socialist spy agencies"

lol what??

[Edited on January 23, 2019 at 4:13 PM. Reason : .]

1/23/2019 4:12:48 PM

Ahahahahhahahaahahahhhaha

1/23/2019 4:49:32 PM

This is so insane



[Edited on January 23, 2019 at 5:54 PM. Reason : .]

1/23/2019 5:53:45 PM

Is there any way this doesn’t end with either Madurai getting killed and reprisals for all his supporters OR Guaida getting killed and a massive purge of anti-Maduro protestors?

1/24/2019 10:33:17 AM

Quote :

"You'd be naive to think CIA and Russian and China and other intel agencies aren't at work here. "

Lol. Some really good analysis here. Literally the only countries still backing Maduro at this point is China and Russia.

1/24/2019 10:52:37 AM

Quote :

"Is there any way this doesn’t end with either Madurai getting killed and reprisals for all his supporters OR Guaida getting killed and a massive purge of anti-Maduro protestors?"

This will go nowhere without further US intervention. Maduro has the backing of of the military.

Quote :

"Lol. Some really good analysis here. Literally the only countries still backing Maduro at this point is China and Russia."

You're a total fucking moron if you thinking this is about anything other than oil and imperialism.

1/24/2019 11:08:30 AM

^Nice argument. I am going to go with the mass starvation, skyrocketing unemployment, and 1,000,000% inflation.

1/24/2019 11:28:17 AM

Oh yes the problems compounded by sanctions and destabilization efforts by the US, nice.

https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1088414772163461120?s=21

Nope definitely not about oil and imperialism!

1/24/2019 11:31:56 AM

Good review of the situation.

https://youtu.be/bCJLL6SHst8

1/24/2019 10:08:39 PM

we’re just doing it all out in the open this time i guess

https://twitter.com/schwarz/status/1088913516923375618?s=21

1/25/2019 7:05:46 PM

Moving this discussion over here since synapse wants to focus on how air traffic controllers Nancy Pelosi ended the shutdown in the other thread.

Quote :

""Several Venezuelan NGOs, such as Foro Penal Venezolano, Súmate, Voto Joven, the Venezuelan Electoral Observatory and the Citizen Electoral Network, expressed their concern over the irregularities of the electoral schedule, including the lack of the Constituent Assembly's competencies to summon the elections, impeding participation of opposition political parties, and the lack of time for standard electoral functions.[11] Because of this, the United Nations human rights chief,[12][13] European Union,[14][15] the Organization of American States, the Lima Group[16] and countries such as Australia and the United States rejected the electoral process.[17][18] However, countries such as China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Turkey and others recognized the election result.[19]" "Maduro is their democratically elected leader" "Democratically" lololol"

Yeah, democratically. A hell of a lot more democratic than a politician who 80% of Venezuelans hadn't heard of naming himself president with the backing of the US.

https://www.thenation.com/article/venezuela-coup-guaido-maduro/

Here's some quick reading on the 2013 & 2018 elections for anyone who's interested:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BreadTube/comments/ak1wtu/hello_im_dr_alan_macleod_i_have_studied_venezuela/

Quote :

"Ha that's quite a fucking goalpost move from "not once""

If, out of all of the conflicts the US has involved itself with in the past century, your only decent example of a good regime change is fucking Hitler, you're not really hitting the mark. Especially considering US corporations supported the Nazis in the 30s.

1/26/2019 2:25:26 PM

How much time have you personally spent in Latin America?

1/27/2019 1:09:25 PM

A lot less than Elliot Abrams.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/26/elliott-abrams-venezuela-us-special-envoy

1/27/2019 1:27:31 PM

So none? Kinda seems like you don’t have a fucking clue about what you’re talking about ITT.

1/27/2019 3:32:31 PM

I don’t get it?

Do we have to have personally been in places like Nicaragua or Chile to know our foreign policy has irreparably harmed generations of people?

Like I know Stalin was a monster without ever having been to Moscow.

1/27/2019 4:20:50 PM

Ujustwait shuts down when confronted with the truth of US foreign intervention

Like no matter how you feel about the legitimacy of Maduro’s office, the cast of characters in Trump’s foreign policy department is horrifying. They just appointed a literal convicted war criminal as special envoy. Wake the fuck up.

1/27/2019 4:55:51 PM

Dude, it’s way more complicated than you’re making it out to be. You have no idea how deeply corrupt the majority of Latin American governments are, and while the US has absolutely contributed to a throughly shitty amount of the corruption, what’s going on in Venezuela has no easy solution in sight, regardless of who’s president.

1/27/2019 8:17:57 PM

It’s rad as hell that Ilhan Omar is on the foreign services committee

https://twitter.com/ilhanmn/status/1089689549033406469?s=21

1/27/2019 9:03:34 PM

Quote :

"have no idea how deeply corrupt the majority of Latin American governments are,"

*looks in the mirror*

1/27/2019 9:40:48 PM

^Strange of her to include Brazil, since they just had free, open, democratic elections. But then again, Brazil (along with the other regimes she mentions) is friendly with Israel, which we know Omar being so anti-Semitic can not support.

1/28/2019 9:26:54 AM

yeah it definitely has nothing to do with bolsonaro, it's definitely just a conspiracy against israel

good detective work

1/28/2019 9:29:53 AM

she’s so good

https://twitter.com/ilhanmn/status/1089713318867156993?s=21

1/28/2019 11:27:46 AM

Quote :

"Oh yes the problems compounded by sanctions and destabilization efforts by the US, nice."

Yes. a tiny fraction of the planet has imposed some sanctions and is probably engaging in some destabilization efforts against Venezuela. All told, sanctions being imposed by only one country seem to be entirely ineffective against any nation with the obvious exception of socialist states for obvious reasons. Oil is fungible, you can sell it anywhere and to anyone. Back when Venezuela was Capitalist, their chief industrial exports went to their neighboring South American states, which all dried up under Chavez long before any U.S. sanctions.

Quote :

"Yeah, democratically. A hell of a lot more democratic than a politician who 80% of Venezuelans hadn't heard of naming himself president with the backing of the US."

They've never heard of the opposition leader because all the opposition leaders they have heard of are being held as political prisoners or fled the country. And no, in rigged elections where Maduro was only opposed by people he chose to run against does NOT make him democratically elected. A show was put on, but in effect he just proclaimed himself president just as Guaida is attempting to do now. And I can't really blame them for trying, since that is apparently how people become President of Venezuela nowadays. I'm sure Guaida will hold elections after-the-fact too, just as Maduro has done for his election. Or the creation of a whole new legislature as he did in 2017 because his party lost power in the actually democratic one.

Seriously. What do you, adultswim, think should happen when this thing happens in a country? If Trump threw out Congress because the Dems took over then rigged his own elections to stay in power, is everyone just supposed to sit and take it because Trump at one point was democratically elected?

[Edited on January 28, 2019 at 3:39 PM. Reason : .,.]

1/28/2019 3:16:49 PM

Quote :

"Maduro was only opposed by people he chose to run against"

The opposition chose not to run and encouraged their supporters not to vote, lmao. Great set-up for deeming the election a sham!

Anyways I don't really care about your opinions on Venezuela but I am extremely interested in hearing more about the socialist CIA.

1/28/2019 3:35:59 PM

Lol, John Bolton demanding regime change from the WH press room. Fuck me.

(Also, was directly asked about military intervention and reiterated ALL options on table)

[Edited on January 28, 2019 at 3:40 PM. Reason : X]

1/28/2019 3:38:48 PM

Quote :

"the socialist CIA."

What is more socialist than a government funded agency whose sole job is to exert power over others? Or were you under the impression the CIA was operated as a charity or sold hamburgers?

Quote :

"The opposition chose not to run and encouraged their supporters not to vote, lmao."

They did that because their most known candidates were in jail or otherwise barred from being put on the ballot. So yea, they boycotted the election because they didn't like the candidates that Maduro had chosen among them to run on their behalf. Which is what any sane person but you would call a "Sham Election".

[Edited on January 28, 2019 at 3:47 PM. Reason : .,.]

1/28/2019 3:41:58 PM

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-russia-exclusive/exclusive-kremlin-linked-contractors-help-guard-venezuelas-maduro-sources-idUSKCN1PJ22M

Cold War going strong.

1/28/2019 3:44:30 PM

Quote :

"What is more socialist than a government funded agency whose sole job is to exert power over others? Or were you under the impression the CIA was operated as a charity or sold hamburgers?"

this is some wild shit even for you dawg. keep it coming though.

1/28/2019 3:48:12 PM

Quote :

"dumb opinion on Venezuela"

Quote :

"dumb opinion on Venezuela"

Quote :

"dumb opinion on Venezuela"

Quote :

"dumb opinion on Venezuela"

Quote :

"dumb opinion on Venezuela"

Quote :

"dumb opinion on Venezuela"

Quote :

"dumb opinion on Venezuela"

Quote :

"dumb opinion on Venezuela"

Quote :

"dumb opinion on Venezuela"

Quote :

"I don't really care about your opinions on Venezuela"

1/28/2019 3:54:04 PM

Love to vote for Bernie Sanders and then support war criminals propping up right wing ghouls in Venezuela

1/28/2019 3:57:28 PM

Kinda hate to admit it, but LoneSnark is actually closer to being 'right' than most other people ITT

It's almost as if people forget Maduro was the fucking VP for Chavez and things actually got WORSE for Venezuelans after he was 'elected' the first time. Venezuela's government has been so unstable that it's hard for most Americans to really have a grasp on how fucked things are. It's on a whole other level.

As for the US and our involvement?

Isolationism sucks- minding our own business means innocent people die, while our traditional adversaries will reap the benefits.

Imperialism/opportunism? Ugh.

This whole fucking thing is a nightmare, and while I definitely don't want ANOTHER American war that will cost us bigly, the US is caught in the middle no matter what.

[Edited on January 28, 2019 at 4:43 PM. Reason : .]

1/28/2019 4:42:00 PM

You cant call it "being caught" in the middle when you are sanctioning them

1/28/2019 5:08:06 PM

I mean, fine, non isolationist, but in just about every category seems like Venezuela needs to get in line behind like 15 other countries. Why would we intervene in Venezuela before, say, NK or Sudan?

1/28/2019 5:13:54 PM