The socialist dream crumbles in Venezuela

[AncapFTW]

That's true, but that doesn't make it socialism, because true socialism is actually based on about everything being private property, i.e. factories owned by the workers working in them, rather than factories owned by super rich individuals who serve nobody but just take most of the profit their workers generate.

Bashing socialism because some idiot claims his state capitalism to be socialism serves no purpose.

Call it what it is and then bash the state capitalism.

Your definition of socialism requires capitalism, as they are doing the trading, setting prices, etc.  So, no, it isn't capitalism.  In both your complaint and his, the problem is the state.  If there wasn't the state to bar entry, the workers won't have any problem coming together to start a business.

A person owning a factory by investing their time and money into building it and administering it isn't the problem.  It just appears like they "serve nobody but just take most of the profit their workers generate" because they have invested the money to start the factory, and are taking most of the risk (or their investors are, with them acting as an agent).  Plus, they own the building, machines, etc, pay all of the bills, decide what to make, when, and how much, and when, buy the materials to make it, etc, so yes, they SHOULD take most of the money.

[Alan C.]

...true socialism is actually based on about everything being private property, i.e. factories owned by the workers working in them, rather than factories owned by super rich individuals who serve nobody but just take most of the profit their workers generate.

 

The implication of your statement is that it's not private property unless "the workers" own it. "The workers" are free to pool their capital and own their own firm if they want.

 

Super rich individuals do, in fact, serve others or they go broke. In a free-market economy, people are rewarded according to the value they provide to others.

 

If you're talking about people who enrich themselves through State privilege (ie. rent-seekers) then you're talking about crooks.

[st434u]

The venezuelan currency is now down to 600-to-1 versus the US dollar, from 180-to-1 a few months back. And the "official" exchange rate is still at 6.3-to-1, which was the actual market rate a couple years ago. Viva Chavez?

[Alan C.]

Venezuela’s Largest Bill Buys 16 U.S. Cents After 30% Plunge
 

 Venezuela’s largest bank note of 100 bolivars is now worth about 16 U.S. cents on the black market, following a 33 percent plunge in the past month.

The currency weakened to 616 per dollar Thursday, meaning the greenback fetches 100 times more bolivars in the black market than it does at the primary official rate, according to data compiled by foreign-exchange website dolartoday.com.

Venezuela has maintained strict currency controls since 2003, pushing people and businesses to illegal street trading when they can’t obtain government approval to purchase the U.S currency at the legal rates. The bolivar has tumbled 88 percent in the unofficial markets over the past year amid the fastest inflation in the world and as President Nicolas Maduro’s administration prints more currency to pay budget expenses.

[Lee Cruz]

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/24264-austerity-immiseration-capitalism-what-can-we-learn-from-venezuelan-socialism

 

^ lol BLAME CAPITALISM

 

Warning your sides will hurt after reading this!

[fractional slacker]

If things are as bad in Venezuela as we have been lead to believe since the collapse in oil prices, why does its story not garner more attention and headlines from the right? I have been thinking about this for months and can't figure it out.
Any thoughts?

[Alan C.]

Venezuelan farmers ordered to hand over produce to state

 

Farmers and manufacturers who produce milk, pasta, oil, rice, sugar and flour have been told to supply between 30 per cent and 100 per cent of their products to the state stores.

[Torero]

I've visited the neighbouring country twice (before the oil price crash) and have many Venezuelan friends.

 

It's truly horrible to see the potentially richest country in the world (having the most of the most "valuable" -sold far below intrinsic value- product in the world) be in such a miserable state.

 

Luckily Colombia is very different. The only big country in South America not having suffered from socialist governments, you see the attitude and will to grow, excel and work in the country, the people and the economy.

 

Venezuela and Persia are two countries which are very much alike. Great friendly people, lots of oil and suppressed by the most monstruous governments possible.

[J-William]

If things are as bad in Venezuela as we have been lead to believe since the collapse in oil prices, why does its story not garner more attention and headlines from the right? I have been thinking about this for months and can't figure it out.

Any thoughts?

The right doesn't have any real strong philosophical objection to bigger government...

But the bigger question is where was the right during the 20th century? The world was being turned into one socialist hellhole after another and the strongest voice against it was a little russian lady

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/24264-austerity-immiseration-capitalism-what-can-we-learn-from-venezuelan-socialism

 

^ lol BLAME CAPITALISM

 

Warning your sides will hurt after reading this!

should come as no surprise that article was written by professors from schools of "education"... Not only the school with the lowest standards, but also the school turning out the teachers filling the children's heads full of socialist rot.... it's the circle of un-life.

[Alan C.]

Looting Turns Deadly In Venezuela Amid Severe Food Shortages

 

A man was killed and dozens were arrested Friday as a mob looted a supermarket and other shops in an industrial Venezuelan city, Bolivar state authorities said.

In announcing the looting, Gov. Francisco Rangel pushed back against opponents of Venezuela’s socialist government who attributed the unrest to widespread scarcities of basic goods across the oil-rich nation.

He said more than two dozen people were arrested in connection with the looting in the southeastern city of Ciudad Guyana and added that there was no excuse for the behavior. “No one is starving,” he said.

. . .

Venezuela has been grappling with worsening shortages of basic goods like cooking oil and flour. The administration has adopted a variety of measures to address the situation and discourage hoarding, including fingerprinting shoppers who buy food at subsidized prices at supermarkets. Officials also limit the days that people can buy certain products.

Few items are produced locally, and rigid currency controls and a scarcity of U.S. dollars have made it increasingly difficult for Venezuelans to find imported products. Price controls don’t help either, with producers complaining that some goods are priced too low to make a profit and justify production.

 

No one is starving...yet. The lines aren't long enough.

 

Looting and violence on the rise in Venezuela supermarkets

 

Fifty-six incidents of looting and 76 looting attempts took place in the first half of 2015...

[Alan C.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcaqWiVbum8

[mlsv2f]

I was considering the other day, if the European countries believe in socialism and "progress" as they like to call, why not bail as Greece? Is that not what they ask of people do to in their own countries when they become financially more solvent?

[hannahbanana]

My Venezuelan friend says things are worse and worse; a visiting relative walked into a supermarket here and started crying because she saw all of the things that are simply not available there anymore, everything from toothpaste to chocolate. She says there's a pretty healthy black market, as well as large amounts of bartering between people to share resources that they are able to make. I'm not sure why there is so little attention given to Venezuela, but there is apparently a growing number of dissenting young people who are trying to get the story out to other countries through social media, since a large portion of the supporters of the current government are apparently older people.

[Alan C.]

Venezuela's currency is worth less than a napkin

[Alan C.]

Babies dying in unsanitary birth wards in Venezuelan hospital

 

Parents say that ten babies were found dead between Saturday and Sunday morning, with another seven dying between Monday and Friday of the week before. All the parents were told their children died from a “bacterial infection”; most of the victims were premature, having been on average seven months into their gestation.

The ninth floor of the hospital, Venezuelan newspapers report, is currently suffering a major infestation of opossums, who appear to be spreading dangerous bacteria throughout the ward. One mother noted that the bathrooms on the ninth floor are out of service, and pregnant women and women who have recently given birth are forced to walk to the fifth floor to use the bathroom.

El Universal, the nation’s largest newspaper, reports that deaths of newborns at the hospital are common. One set of parents told the newspaper that their child had died on a Thursday, but they were not told until Friday. Others who have used the hospital’s services tell El Universal that the situation resembles that of a year ago, when 15 newborns died of an infection and became a rallying cry for the opposition against the socialist government’s recurring inability to provide adequate medical care.

The source of these infections seem to be opossums, who roam the hospital ward freely. One relative of a dead newborn told El Tiempo that, upon challenging hospital officials regarding the opossums, she was told “the appearance of possums is something normal in the hospital; there is an invasion of this type of rodent, but there is no cause for alarm.”

The report in El Universal finds that the reason opossums are so common, says one employee at the hospital, is that sanitation employees have run out of cleaning liquids and necessary maintenance items, leaving them impotent in the face of the filth consuming the hospital.

Earlier on Tuesday, El Tiempo reported that the Anzoátegui state government’s Legislative Council will be investigating the deaths. The latest report indicates that up to 50 newborns have died in the hospital in the past month, all of a similar infection.

Venezuela’s medical situation is dire, and has been dire for years. Doctors warned in 2013, during the tenure of dictator Hugo Chávez, that nearly every kind of necessary medical supply was running out, from needles to bandages to drugs. By the next year, doctors were reporting a surge in the number of amputations at hospitals, as those injured began developing infections that doctors did not have sufficient antibiotics to suppress, and thus resorted to removing limbs.

At the time, reports indicated that 70 percent of Venezuelan pharmacies were struggling to keep stocked with basic drugs; in Caracas, the capital, that number was slightly less, 60 percent. The Venezuelan government, which controls all medical care in the country, at the time owed $4 billion to drug companies and had no way of paying the debt back, leaving pharmacies understocked.

Venezuela relies heavily on the Cuban “slave doctor” trade for its medical care, outsourcing medical jobs to doctors who are paid a meager living stipend to work long hours in Venezuelan hospitals. Even this aspect of the Venezuelan medical system is collapsing, as dozens of Cuban doctors use their assignments in Venezuela as launching pads to defect to the United States, leaving Venezuela with a shortage of doctors.

 

The Soviet Union experienced exactly the same problems.

[Torero]

"The latest report indicates that up to 50 newborns have died in the hospital in the past month, all of a similar infection."

 

So about 43.6 single moms less. Some readers would be delighted to see the "loss" of those "terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible leeching parasites".

 

Let's see how many downvotes I get for my cynicism

[Guest Gee]

"The latest report indicates that up to 50 newborns have died in the hospital in the past month, all of a similar infection."

 

So about 43.6 single moms less. Some readers would be delighted to see the "loss" of those "terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible leeching parasites".

 

Let's see how many downvotes I get for my cynicism

 

Cynicism is a state of mind characterized by a distrust of others motives. This is a straw man, and a particularly ignorant and offensive one at that. So your not being a cynic, your being a dick.  

[Torero]

Cynicism is a state of mind characterized by a distrust of others motives. This is a straw man, and a particularly ignorant and offensive one at that. So your not being a cynic, your being a dick.  

 

No, those are labels and mind characterisations you put on me. I didn't choose your labels. Nor do I have a distrust of others motives.

 

Offensive is true of course, but that's merely the cynical boomerang I threw. If you do not want straw men, yet an intelligent debate, I spent a whole evening summarising my points in the Single Mom topic. Feel free to react to them.

 

By the way, English is not my first language, but it's "you're", not "your".

[J-William]

By the way, English is not my first language, but it's "you're", not "your".

You're a jerk.

[Alan C.]

Venezuela’s Food Shortages Trigger Long Lines, Hunger and Looting

 

In a national survey, the pollster Consultores 21 found 30% of Venezuelans eating two or fewer meals a day during the second quarter of this year, up from 20% in the first quarter. Around 70% of people in the study also said they had stopped buying some basic food item because it had become unavailable or too expensive.

 

Venezuela Is Adding More Zeroes to Its Currency to Deal With Hyperinflation

 

Venezuela is preparing to issue bank notes in higher denominations next year as rampant inflation reduces the value of a 100-bolivar bill to just 14 cents on the black market.

The new notes -- of 500 and possibly 1,000 bolivars -- are expected to be released sometime after congressional elections are held on Dec. 6, said a senior government official who isn’t authorized to talk about the plans publicly.

Many Venezuelans have to carry wads of cash in bags instead of wallets as soaring inflation and a declining currency increase the number of bills needed for everyday purchases. The situation is set to get worse. Inflation, already the fastest in the world, could end the year at 150 percent, said the official.

[brucethecollie]

Impressive how we have learned nothing from the XX scentury!! And this "we just need a better government" is utter bullshit..strange coincidence that the bigger the state size the bigger the corruption rates. Id like to know if the venezuelan intellectuals are sinking with the ship or fleeing the country Cheers J

 

Those with the means are fleeing or have fled.  I was born in Venezuela and my parents and grandparents grew up there.  My dad was very aware of and unhappy about the government and corruption he saw getting worse all around him. When I was born, a family friend was murdered and the government covered it up and for my parents that was like the last straw.  He and my mom saved up all their money and moved to the US with myself as a toddler and my mom in her 3rd trimester of pregnancy.  It was an easier process for them because my dad was born in the US while my grandfather was taking some courses for a few months at a Miami University so he was born with citizenship and could claim my mom and I in the Visa process.  People in Venezuela with proven Spanish heritage are getting asylum in Spain. Many of my family members have left and are living in Canada, the US, and Europe.  Many wish they had left before it was too late. Most of my family is trapped and in dire situations. None of my family supported Chavez and the increasing socialism but they are all stuck with it now.  Signs Venezuela was giving off 30 years ago are seemingly parallel to what we are seeing in the US.  Not good.

[fractional slacker]

They have to add more zeros because folks are so prosperous and their economy has a lot of monetary velocity which means it's like totally valuable and in demand. They are just adding supply to balance demand.

[Alan C.]

Venezuelan Prisoners Eating Stray Cats to Survive
 

An NGO operating in Venezuela has published videos of starved prisoners in the socialist nation killing, skinning, and cooking cats on aluminum pans in order to survive, as wardens have forbidden families from bringing food and serve only a small cup of rice and water per day.

. . .

...relatives of inmates from at least four prisons denounced both the lack of food and various forms of physical abuse, including beatings with bats, chains, and heavy wet cloths.

. . .

Such human rights violations raise particular questions in Venezuela, where being publicly opposed to the socialist regime of President Nicolás Maduro could easily land anyone in prison. At its peak, the regime was arresting one anti-socialist protester every half hour in 2014. Prisons in the country are overflowing with prisoners of conscience, not just standard criminals.

 

There is a rather gruesome YouTube video after the link. Don't watch it if you're squimish.

[brucethecollie]

My uncle used to work in law enforcement in Venezuela.  He says people are constantly disappearing.  He has contacts who claim bodies are just being dumped in the ocean every day-by the government.  

[Alan C.]

Mounting extortion plagues shopkeepers in violent Venezuela

 

100+ Venezuela Security Officials Accused of Extortion