Venezuela's collapse - Socialism. Socialism never changes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/w...inside-venezuelas-failing-hospitals.html?_r=1

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-floor-doctors-try-operate-without-tools.html

I'd call this whole story self explanatory really.

In a piss poor attempt at eliminating a medium-sized black market the government introduced strict new foreign currency laws, effectively banning the exchange of local currency for US dollars, Euros or British Sterling.

This has had a disastrous domino effect on the wider economy, with businesses unable to import and export vital goods and services, the economy has been slowly collapsing.

This has now begun to bite hard into the medical sector, with no ability to import much equipment and other necessities such as drugs Venezuela's hospitals are rapidly becoming a disaster zone.

This is in spite of the fact that the government of Maduro continues to spout out increasingly deluded statements and claims that Venezuela has a great healthcare system and isn't increasingly a bankrupted shithole that has run out of toilet paper, oil, and other basic necessities.

 

[Splendid]

I think brazil would honestly be better as a colony again,so I choose Lord protector.

Well, the USA is going to bail out Puerto Rico after all of their wasteful spending, so you guys should hop on the US territory gravy train too!

 

[Rou]

I think people are confusing socialism for incompetence. Socialism doesn't make you buy an F1 team when your country is starving, or just ride the oil wave with no backup plans in case it crashes.

 

[AN/ALR56]

I think people are confusing socialism for incompetence. Socialism doesn't make you buy an F1 team when your country is starving, or just ride the oil wave with no backup plans in case it crashes.

Socialism is incompetence
No socialist country was successful.

 

[Rou]

Socialism is incompetence
No socialist country was successful.

It's incompetence when it's taken to extremes, just like all ideals. I'm not saying it's a perfect political ideal, but these things aren't inherent to the philosophy.

 

[Sperglord Dante]

Maduro must not think much of his people's intelligence if he really believes they'll buy his lie about there being an "economic war" waged against the country by the US and bourgeoisie. Stirring up nationalist sentiment in the face of extreme hardship is a classic petty dictator tactic to deflect the people's fears and anger away from the regime.

That lie worked just fine for 20 long years.

Socialism is incompetence
No socialist country was successful.

No socialist country has ever existed, or lasted enough to be a real country. The closest thing to a socialist state probaly was the early Soviet Union.

 

[Ponderous Pillock]

No socialist country has ever existed, or lasted enough to be a real country. The closest thing to a socialist state probaly was the early Soviet Union.

I think people are confusing socialism for incompetence. Socialism doesn't make you buy an F1 team when your country is starving, or just ride the oil wave with no backup plans in case it crashes.

Oh and here comes the adanoid's riddled voice of "The soviets weren't true socialists, it was a command capitalist system."


Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccckkkkkk oooooooooooooooooooooffffffffff.

Every instance of Socialism has failed fucking miserably because it's a god-awful system that forces people to just exist as opposed to live.

Social Democracy Works because it's smart enough to allow the state to do what it does well, while ensuring there's a number of wealth creating classes to ensure it can be funded properly.

Venezuela rode the fucking Oil Gravy train to the detriment of all else and created a Resource Curse economy all while spending the money like water to ensure key voting blocs were kept sweet.

They were depending almost entirely on the Oil train never dipping down as badly as it did because 50% of the entire export market was the US of A.

Who's now exporting Gas and Oil themselves because they're able to meet internal oil and gas needs.

Couple this with their increasing paranoia against all other groups and you're in the standard tailspin of all socialist regimes not smart enough to bend with the winds of change.

 

[Rou]

Oh and here comes the adanoid's riddled voice of "The soviets weren't true socialists, it was a command capitalist system."


Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccckkkkkk oooooooooooooooooooooffffffffff.

Every instance of Socialism has failed fucking miserably because it's a god-awful system that forces people to just exist as opposed to live.

Social Democracy Works because it's smart enough to allow the state to do what it does well, while ensuring there's a number of wealth creating classes to ensure it can be funded properly.

Venezuela rode the fucking Oil Gravy train to the detriment of all else and created a Resource Curse economy all while spending the money like water to ensure key voting blocs were kept sweet.

They were depending almost entirely on the Oil train never dipping down as badly as it did because 50% of the entire export market was the US of A.

Who's now exporting Gas and Oil themselves because they're able to meet internal oil and gas needs.

Couple this with their increasing paranoia against all other groups and you're in the standard tailspin of all socialist regimes not smart enough to bend with the winds of change.

And the same would happen, no matter what political ideology they use. It's because they are incompetent and corrupt, not because they're socialist. As for the failures, what about the Scandinavian countries? They're pretty socialist.

 

[Ponderous Pillock]

And the same would happen, no matter what political ideology they use. It's because they are incompetent and corrupt, not because they're socialist. As for the failures, what about the Scandinavian countries? They're pretty socialist.

They're Social Democracies. Which as said, work because they're smart enough to keep multiple wealth generating classes available and properly diversified economies.

Countries which are smart enough to concede this tend to do better than most, even nominally socialist countries such as Vietnam and China do this, but now fall under the "not real socialists".

 

[AnOminous]

And the same would happen, no matter what political ideology they use. It's because they are incompetent and corrupt, not because they're socialist. As for the failures, what about the Scandinavian countries? They're pretty socialist.

The term "socialist" is used in more than one sense. In the sense of a Soviet style command economy, it's invariably a disaster.

If a "capitalist" society meant pure, unregulated capitalism, the same could be said actually, but there is no such thing and nobody has even been dumb enough to actually try it.

Most industrialized societies are market-based economies with some kind of social safety net, a welfare state. These range from the "socialist" end of the Scandinavian countries to more moderate forms of the welfare state as in the United States.

 

[Sperglord Dante]

Oh and here comes the adanoid's riddled voice of "The soviets weren't true socialists, it was a command capitalist system."


Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccckkkkkk oooooooooooooooooooooffffffffff.

Chill the fuck out dude, I'm not a tumblr commie. When I say there's never been a socialist country I mean a pure socialist country is still a pipe dream.

A socialist state is one where the proletariat directly chooses how to govern the country in a representative (but not exactly democratic) system. In practice this always leads to a new bureaucratic breed or big brother figure taking control.

I mentioned the early days of the Soviet Union because there was small gap of time between the end of Tsarism & the Duma and Lenin becoming all powerful where the Soviets, a council of representatives from the major workers' unions' had control over Russia. I'm not saying it was good, I'm not saying it would've worked on the long run, but that was th closest mankind has gotten to socialism.

 

[XYZpdq]

So on the subject of "oil's less lolwat oh fuck", does this bode anything for Saudia Arabia?

 

[Rou]

They're Social Democracies. Which as said, work because they're smart enough to keep multiple wealth generating classes available and properly diversified economies.

Countries which are smart enough to concede this tend to do better than most, even nominally socialist countries such as Vietnam and China do this, but now fall under the "not real socialists".

No one really mentioned "not real socialists" though. They work in those countries because they're not taking socialism to an extreme, and have competent and disciplined leadership. Venezuela has neither.

 

[millais]

So on the subject of "oil's less lolwat oh fuck", does this bode anything for Saudia Arabia?

The Saudis are the most influential OPEC member, so they can order all the others to reduce production whenever they want to raise the price. But they set aside enough for rainy days to be able to survive the current low prices. I suspect Saudi is intentionally keeping the price low for as long as it won't hurt them. This is because low oil price fucks over Russia (who Saudi dislikes for propping up Syria and Iran) and it has also shut down the North American fracking and oil sands industry over night by making it hugely unprofitable in comparison to cheap Saudi oil, reducing future Saudi competition for the North American market.

 

[AN/ALR56]

Saudis will colapse soon.
Also Venezuela is in a state of war right now to quell opossition protests.
Massive army exercises are also happening.
Last year brazil did exercises on air lifting armored units to the border region.
I fear we are heading into a civil war that brazil will obviously be dragged into.
At least we going to have air superiority in a possible conflict., Venezuela s flankers can't take off due to parts.

 

[Pac]

So on the subject of "oil's less lolwat oh fuck", does this bode anything for Saudia Arabia?

From what I understand, and apart from what other users have said, Saudi Arabia is slowly but surely shifting their economy to a service oriented one, as well as investing heavily on renewable energy (Mainly solar energy). They want to become the middle east's economic center. Beyond Israel, and maybe even surpassing Japan. Who nows, maybe by 2030 they'll actually accomplish this.

They invest very heavily on infrastructure projects; mainly, construction, alongside other services. They are moving away from a commodity producer (Oil) to a services provider (Tourism, banking, and electricity seller).

 

[Splendid]

From what I understand, and apart from what other users have said, Saudi Arabia is slowly but surely shifting their economy to a service oriented one, as well as investing heavily on renewable energy (Mainly solar energy). They want to become the middle east's economic center. Beyond Israel, and maybe even surpassing Japan. Who nows, maybe by 2030 they'll actually accomplish this.

They invest very heavily on infrastructure projects; mainly, construction, alongside other services. They are moving away from a commodity producer (Oil) to a services provider (Tourism, banking, and electricity seller).

Unless they make some pretty fucking huge changes to their Sharia law, they will fail as a tourism center.

 

[AP 297]

The Saudis are the most influential OPEC member, so they can order all the others to reduce production whenever they want to raise the price. But they set aside enough for rainy days to be able to survive the current low prices. I suspect Saudi is intentionally keeping the price low for as long as it won't hurt them. This is because low oil price fucks over Russia (who Saudi dislikes for propping up Syria and Iran) and it has also shut down the North American fracking and oil sands industry over night by making it hugely unprofitable in comparison to cheap Saudi oil, reducing future Saudi competition for the North American market.

That last part is key, because the Saudis like our military being involved there. It saves them from having to raise their own that could be strong enough to topple their own government. A number of governments in that region have been toppled by their own military and the Saudi Crown wants to avoid that happening. Having the US play the heavy suits them just fine. The talk about the US becoming less involved in the region scared Saudi Arabia a lot because it meant that they might have to counter Iran alone.

---

Back to Venezuela, the story has gotten some coverage because it seems silly, but there is a darker aspect to it. Coca Cola is no longer producing its products in Venezuela.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/23/coca-cola-production-stopped-sugar-shortage-venezuela

The darker aspect is that the country is right now a number of food producers announced a month ago that they only had 15 days of food left.

https://panampost.com/sabrina-martin/2016/04/27/looting-venezuela-food-electricity/

Choice Quote:

On Wednesday, the Venezuelan Chamber of Food (Cavidea) said in a statement that most companies only have 15 days worth of stocked food.

According to the union, the production of food will continue to dwindle because raw materials as well as local and foreign inputs are depleted.

In the statement, Cavidea reported that they are 300 days overdue on payments to suppliers and it’s been 200 days since the national government last authorized the purchase of dollars under the foreign currency control system.

That's right. Venezuela technically ran out of its ability to produce food on its own 13 days ago and is having to stretch its very low inventory a very far distance in the midst of electrical, water, and material shortages.

 

[Pac]

That last part is key, because the Saudis like our military being involved there. It saves them from having to raise their own that could be strong enough to topple their own government. A number of governments in that region have been toppled by their own military and the Saudi Crown wants to avoid that happening. Having the US play the heavy suits them just fine. The talk about the US becoming less involved in the region scared Saudi Arabia a lot because it meant that they might have to counter Iran alone.

---

Back to Venezuela, the story has gotten some coverage because it seems silly, but there is a darker aspect to it. Coca Cola is no longer producing its products in Venezuela.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/23/coca-cola-production-stopped-sugar-shortage-venezuela

The darker aspect is that the country is right now a number of food producers announced a month ago that they only had 15 days of food left.

https://panampost.com/sabrina-martin/2016/04/27/looting-venezuela-food-electricity/

Choice Quote:


That's right. Venezuela technically ran out of its ability to produce food on its own 13 days ago and is having to stretch its very low inventory a very far distance in the midst of electrical, water, and material shortages.

Fucking Maduro went full retard this time.

 

[AP 297]

Okay, I got some more news stories about this mess.

First European Airlines are beginning to halt flights to Venezuela.

Another sign of deep trouble in Venezuela: Lufthansa, one of Europe's largest airlines, said it will stop flying to the country. The company announced Sunday that beginning June 17, it will suspend flights indefinitely to Venezuela, which is grappling with a daunting economic and humanitarian crisis.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/29/news/economy/venezuela-lufthansa-airline/

Also this NY Times article pretty much summarizes the current state of the country - No food, no water, no electricity, escalating crime, and a president who refuses to be recalled amid growing international pressure.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/28/world/americas/venezuela-economic-government-collapse.html?_r=0

What water people are getting is now brown and toxic.

Water arrives just once a week, on Thursdays, to her neighborhood of San Antonio de los Altos.

That day, they quickly divide up the chores. A nephew gets into the shower while another one washes the dishes, Ms. Arneta says. One of her brothers washes up the bathroom, while someone else fills buckets with water for later.

But Ms. Arneta says the water is now a brownish color and is making her family sick. Many Venezuelans say they have gotten skin irritations from showering or from the inability to bathe and wash their sheets and towels.

“Her body is filled with small bubbles and they sting horribly,” Ms. Arneta said of one of her sisters.

Armed mobs are now appearing and killing people.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-36410563

Choice quote:

Last year, the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence group released its report for 2014, recording 24,980 violent deaths. That equated to 82 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, up from 79 in 2013.

The NGO says those are figures for a country at war.

The only and I say only silver lining:

The opposition and the government are now holding talks.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ment-opposition-exploring-talks-to-end-crisis

 

[*Asterisk*]

This is the most horrified I've been of a conflict in my entire life. This could be a war on the scale of nothing South America has seen since the height of the FARC War.