Venezuela's collapse - Socialism. Socialism never changes.

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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.
 
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feedtheoctopus said:
I'll give it about a year before Maduro's getting lynched in the street.
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Never underestimate the ability of these cockroaches to stay in power. Maduro will use this as an oppertunity to starve out any opposition, preform some "population remanagment", and buy the loyalties of the survivors with hand outs. I doubt he's going anywhere.
 
How do you continue to attempt to solve one of the worst food crises since the late 1990's in North Korea? Create more pointless bureaucratic positions to serve as "Food Czars" and place a ban on long lines in front of bakeries in an attempt to cure the "anxiety" that is crippling the country.

The "Food Czar" position is literally what you think it is: They are "Generals" for sixteen different foods and medications, including rice and corn. What they pretty much do, besides look over a bunch of spreadsheets and tell people to harvest more, I honestly don't know.

But there are obviously no problems in the glorious socialist state of Venezuela. Let's spend over $400,000 in a week to celebrate Fidel Castro's birthday!

According to National Assembly member Carlos Berrizbeitia, Maduro — who was in Cuba Monday, August 8 through Sunday, August 14 — lived lavishly while celebrating on the island.

According to calculations done by Berrizbeitia, the Venezuelan government has spent US $124 million on visiting other countries so far this year.

“The amount spent on trips this years surpasses billions of bolívares,” Berrizbeitia said. “For the trip to Cuba, for example, it was unnecessary to use the presidential plane, whose flight time cost US $25,000. Additionally, they brought musicians, journalists, family and friends to sing happy birthday to Fidel. That added up to $400,000 because there were more than 80 people there.”
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:story:
 
DerSandstrom said:
How do you continue to attempt to solve one of the worst food crises since the late 1990's in North Korea? Create more pointless bureaucratic positions to serve as "Food Czars" and place a ban on long lines in front of bakeries in an attempt to cure the "anxiety" that is crippling the country.

The "Food Czar" position is literally what you think it is: They are "Generals" for sixteen different foods and medications, including rice and corn. What they pretty much do, besides look over a bunch of spreadsheets and tell people to harvest more, I honestly don't know.

But there are obviously no problems in the glorious socialist state of Venezuela. Let's spend over $400,000 in a week to celebrate Fidel Castro's birthday!



:story:
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Geez. Surprised people weren't waiting in line to use every leaf on the tree for toilet paper.
 
AnOminous said:
Another irony is they can legitimately say "Thanks Obama" for at least part of that, as Obama made it a campaign promise and actually did a lot to lower those oil prices. Or hey, you might want to give oil companies the credit for it. Either way, though, they can blame Americans.
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How did America lower fuel prices? I know that the Saudis and OPEC started pumping a crapload of oil and basically we have a world oversupply, but prices dropped what 30% at most? I haven't read up much on it at all.
 
Venezuela's government might be corrupt to the core but at least they aren't racists and that's what truly matters
 
Brandobaris said:
How did America lower fuel prices? I know that the Saudis and OPEC started pumping a crapload of oil and basically we have a world oversupply, but prices dropped what 30% at most? I haven't read up much on it at all.
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One word: Fracking.

America has vast quantities of natural gas underground. With Fracking, they were harvesting so much that the Saudis felt economicily threatened by it. By oversupplying, they are killing off that form of oil exploration.
 
Goofy Logic said:
One word: Fracking.

America has vast quantities of natural gas underground. With Fracking, they were harvesting so much that the Saudis felt economicily threatened by it. By oversupplying, they are killing off that form of oil exploration.
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We have a number of ways of producing energy and electricity in particular, so the more natural gas we use, the less petroleum we need. It's not like it's a direct instant change, because we use them for different things, but the market overhang eventually kicks in.
 
Goofy Logic said:
One word: Fracking.

America has vast quantities of natural gas underground. With Fracking, they were harvesting so much that the Saudis felt economicily threatened by it. By oversupplying, they are killing off that form of oil exploration.
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I believe it was shale oil that they were feeling threatened by. It's usually unprofitable but at $100+ a barrel you can make a dollar. Come Saudis, who value market share over unit price, and throw OPEC under the bus to kill shale oil.
 
i've a good friend in venezuela who frequently updates me on the state of the country and supplies me with info. at one point he told me that there's a curfew and a government police force guns down anyone who's out past a certain time, and they cart away the bodies to god-knows-where (lovely). he also told me that the referendum has basically been suspended indefinitely, or at the very least, it's probably not going to be in november unless the government gets its shit straightened out. i'm not sure if this is still the case, however.
 
Leafy Path said:
a government police force guns down anyone who's out past a certain time, and they cart away the bodies to god-knows-where
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In before the government starts handing out "ration blocks" to the masses, which taste strange, yet oddly familiar...
 
StarvingAutist said:
This is why you don't base your economy on a non-renewable resource.
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More like this is why you don't base your economy on a shitty delusional ideology that's never brought human civilisation anything but poverty, hunger, corruption, crime and civil war.

Petrodollars can thrive long enough to create healthy, sustainable economies if properly managed, but the AI in Civ 5 does a better job at finance and public health than Maduro or Hugo Chavez ever could.
 
RJ MacReady said:
More like this is why you don't base your economy on a shitty delusional ideology that's never brought human civilisation anything but poverty, hunger, corruption, crime and civil war.
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No matter what Chavez, Maduro, and the American media say, Venezuela is not socialist. They still have a stock market, there is still private property, and the only difference between Chavismo and the Nordic welfare state is that Sweden never claimed to be anything other than capitalist.

Socialism does not mean "when governments own everything", because that would be state capitalism. Socialism means "the democratic control of the means of production by the working class", which didn't happen in Venezuela until after Chavez died and even then it's barely there to begin with.
 
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