Venezuela thread - for all venezuelan news

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Que fue el mio hablale.

Are there any independent left alternative to PSUV? I've heard of Marea Socialista.

The opposition is (officially at least) socdems and demsocs (like there's a difference).

However, and I don't know Spanish, but all English statements by MUD or supporters that I've found talks about fiscal responsibility and stabilizing the budget, usual neoliberal buzzwords.

I think that tells us a lot about Chavez and how the Venezuelans feel about him, when even the opposition has to at least pay lip service to his legacy. It's like how our liberals here in Sweden has to pretend to like the Swedish Model.

Well, beyond them there exists the Communist Party, which is allied with PSUV. I'd presume them to be the regular ML nostalgics.

Independent? I don't think that there are any left, the GPPSB (PSUV coalition) is big.

What about Marea Socialista? Didn't they split from PSYV?

there are power cuts daily where i live, and water is only available for one hour every day

(i don't live in caracas so i don't know anything about how calima affects things)

bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-18/yellow-water-dirty-air-power-outages-venezuela-hits-a-new-low

eso es lo que te pasa por no vivir en caracas

caracas es caracas y lo demás es monte y culebra

eso te pasa por no vivir en caracas

caracas es caracas y lo demás es monte y culebra

Fucking Bloomberg.

Obviously you need to implement power cuts.

But the truth is that the electric system in the whole country has been more than neglected by the revolution, which is a in incredible sin regarding the fact that Chávez enjoyed the biggest petroleum bonanza of the nation's history.

The power outages predate this particular drought by years, it's an inherent problem in the whole infrastructure which the administrations of the past two decades or more have failed to really address; so yeah we're just living through exacerbated consequences of our historical incompetence and corruption.

Maduro is not the Devil, he's just a fucking moron.

Obviously you need to implement power cuts.

But the truth is that the electric system in the whole country has been more than neglected by the revolution, which is a in incredible sin regarding the fact that Chávez enjoyed the biggest petroleum bonanza of the nation's history.

The power outages predate this particular drought by years, it's an inherent problem in the whole infrastructure which the administrations of the past two decades or more have failed to really address; so yeah we're just living through exacerbated consequences of our historical incompetence and corruption.

Maduro is not the Devil, he's just a fucking moron who inherited a massive mess from his beloved commander.

Obviously you need to implement power cuts.

But the truth is that the electric system in the whole country has been more than neglected by the revolution, which is a in incredible sin regarding the fact that Chávez enjoyed the biggest petroleum bonanza of the nation's history.

The power outages predate this particular drought by years, it's an inherent problem in the whole infrastructure which the administrations of the past two decades or more have failed to really address; so yeah we're just living through exacerbated consequences of our historical incompetence and corruption.

Maduro is not the Devil, he's just a fucking moron who inherited a massive mess from his beloved commander.

Venezuela has had this problem for fucking ages, neither Chávez nor Maduro did anything to find other sources of power. When this happens, they don't really care if they can still keep Caracas running by fucking other cities in the ass, and when the levels are back up and they don't have to cut power, they do absolutely nothing to solve this shit that happens almost every year.

(talking about Chávez in past, Maduro in present)

holy shit why is Holla Forums so fucked

the triple post above wasn't there 10 minutes ago

WTF? Did you expect Chavez do develop nuclear fusion or something?

If he gave a shit about maintaining the refineries well, it's likely that all of this could be avoided.

Why are neighboring countries not shitting themselves like Venezuela did in 2010?

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Chávez actually activated thermal power stations and imported electricity from Colombia, he may not have done the best thing but he could deal with it.
____________
bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-36108295

And the rotating timeslots for power cuts:

I guess that the 12am to 4am power cuts will make people stop working, at least here in Maracaibo, because nobody will want to work or go to school with one or two hours of sleep (sleeping without a fan or air conditioner in this heat is fucking hard)

Timeslot source:
prodavinci.com/2016/04/21/actualidad/este-es-el-esquema-electrico-anunciado-por-el-gobierno-monitorprodavinci/

From the video:
Current average consumption is 15500MW
(he says "a grain of water, not sand", wouldn't that be a drop?)

The amnesty law wasn't the only one blocked for bullshit reasons, all legal ways of starting a referendum are getting blocked too, but the supreme court can do whatever the fuck it wants because it's the fucking supreme court.

I guess that they want one of those outcomes:
A. The opposition gives up
B. A coup commanded by radical military guys (pro- or anti-chávez, but still anti-maduro) happens, they take Maduro and kill him dead, and no opposition leader will want to be associated with the coup so we end up with a military leader.

It's because Venezuela depended way too much on oil revenue and with the price of oil crashing there isn't the necessary revenue to fund the improvements that are needed. Chavez + Maduro weren't perfect but the CIA/US funded opposition aren't going to do any better.

Ya just like 2003 :DDDDDD

Oh wait they did associate with the coup.

-__-

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i'm site that a cia funded opposition would be able to fund any improvements that they want

No because it's only personnel funding that goes into the pockets of their cronies. The US has no interest in a developed Venezuela; Venezuela could literally just be desert tribes and so long as some military guys are keeping a flow of cheap oil or allowing them to have a military base there or something they won't give a shit.

Why do they waste money funding the opposition if they already have a flow of cheap oil?

Or to build a military base. Who the fuck knows; the CIA kidnapped Honduras's president and Honduras has even less shit to offer than Venezuela.

Also the cheap oil from Saudi Arabia won't last forever; it doesn't hurt to lock down other sources even if it's just as a strategic reserve. Or maybe the US just hates Maduro because of his rhetoric and so they fund the opposition just because they can. Brazil currently has all the makings of a coup right now as well and I can't think of anything the US wants from Brazil but they're doing stuff there anyways.

Around 1/3 of Venezuela's oil exports go to the US, stopping the flow would only hurt Venezuela more.

Stopping the flow would be a pretty good idea if the economy was diversified. It's never good to sell product at bargain discounts.

Volvió el racionamiento Plan de Administración de Cargas

There are five power cut "orders": A, B, C, D and E
You can see when you will get the daily power cuts at:
corpoelec.gob.ve/sites/default/files/encarte_por_estados_definitivo.pdf (if it doesn't load, google "Plan de Administración de Cargas")

Also, it says "CORRESPONDIENTE A LA SEMANA DEL 25 DE ABRIL AL 2 DE MAYO DE 2016" so they could change it after may 2 just to fuck with people.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-21/venezuelans-face-threat-of-a-new-ignominy-a-beer-shortage

now we'll have no polar beers (beers, not bears)

twitter.com/puzkas/status/723657108516945922

ayy lmao

esto es lo que se llama "raspar la olla"

www.eluniversal.com/noticias/daily-news/chamber-commerce-venezuelans-are-poverty_247647

i wonder which exchange rate they're using there.

combined monthly wage is 24853 BsF

DICOM rate: $70/month
Black market rate: $24/month

eluniversal.com/noticias/daily-news/chamber-commerce-venezuelans-are-poverty_247647

test

Wew lads, we're not just poor; we're POVERTY ITSELF!

Y lo mas seguro, como ya es usual, es que no publicaran un sevillo despues de la siguiente semana y se ira la electricidad cuando les de la gana.

this is not your average everyday shitposting

The national assembly is dead.

(also, it's a bit absurd how the psuv suddenly cares about impunity when the amnesty law is being discussed, but there are a shitton of cases where someone gets mugged or killed and the police doesn't give a shit about it, or the criminal is out of jail a month or a week later)

el-nacional.com/politica/Alcalde-Carabobo-prohibe-Obama-municipio_0_835116496.html

WATCH OUT, OBAMA
you're not welcome in carabobo

this must have really affected your vacations

is venezuela just another pseudo-socialist state like north korea? are their elections shit? why are they worse off under socialism than when theyre under neoliberalism? is chavez a shill? any venebros want to clarify something?

Visitor from /politics/ here. Let me help you break it down for you using flour as an example.

Being a socialist entity, the government of Venezuela decides its a good thing to control the price of staple goods and set it at a very low level in order to help feed and provide for the poor. Sounds really good, right?

They start off by sending an official to Brazil or Uruguay or another nearby country and buying a bunch of flour $10 flour (the international price) for $20. Already, we can see a problem: where did the other $10 go? Most like it was pocketed by the official and his foreign exporter accomplish. Corruption in action and the government is left with a lot less foreign currency.

The imported foreign flour now arrives back in Venezuela. The government decides to sell it at the artificially controlled price of say $3. Yes, they're selling the flour they spent $20 on for $3. So that's a $17 loss that has to be covered up by state oil money (assuming there is oil money at the moment and that the international oil price is high). Again, a large loss of foreign currency.

Now, in next door Colombia, flour is still selling for the international price of $10. Smelling a ~great~ opportunity for arbitrage, some Venezuelans decide to re-export (read: smuggle) the flour they bought for $3 and sell it in Colombia for $10. Great for them, since they're making a profit. Not great for the Venezuelan population though, since now there is less flour in stores.

By the way, producing flour domestically costs $5. Given that the state is selling imported flour for $3, there is no way local producers can compete. They'd be operating at a loss. So they shut down. Now there are people without a job and even LESS flour available domestically. Those store shelves are starting to look pretty empty.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!~ When the government officials are importing that foreign flour, they're pretending to be importing 100 tons. In reality though, they're only importing 50 tons. All the extra dollars disappear because of currency arbitrage (corruption). How? Well, image that the official preferential exchange rate is $1 = 10 bolivars. Now imagine that in the black market, $1 = 1000+ bolivars. This a large incentive corruption. The end result is that some people are pocketing away more money while even less flour ends up in store shelves. Which are now totally empty by the way. People just cannot find flour anywhere. In fact, look, they're actually physically fighting over a bag right now! I mean, you could try the black market, but that shit is expensive.

That's basically how things have been operating for awhile now in Venezuela; corruption, mismanagement, and unwillingness on the part of the government to realize how bad the situation is. Throw in a crash in the international oil price (which is really bad since oil revenue makes up a huge chunk of government funding), Chavez dying (at least he had powerful charisma), and a massive spike in crime/murders/violence, and you get Venezuela.

It's really not a nice place to be in right now, onii-chan.

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why the fuck did they even start a socialist government in the first place? why not just accept the neoliberal one until the material conditions are ready? did they still have democracy under the socialist government?

You don't need to educate me on that. That's a copy-paste (not a bad one though) that also showed up in an earlier Venezuela thread.

These threads never go anywhere. It's always a mix a bit of legit grievances (there is tons of murder and crime) and, and that's the bigger part, total nonsense (like people hallucinating about some glorious past with a high standard of living, or the guy you reply to apparantly thinking that Chávez is still alive). There is never debate about what different policies to pursue. Like what sort of taxation is inherently less vulnerable to tricks and corruption.

;_; All the proper aryan democratic politicians got SHOOTED and raped to death. Inform yourself on the Venezuela subreddit!

Not a socialist government as they didn't seize the means of production.

This is going to be a doozy…

You seem to be implying there was a choice. It appears brief history lesson is in order.

Venezuela's economy since 1920 can be summed in one word: oil. Prior to that, it was basically a poor state dependent on exporting (in historical order of growth and importance) cocoa, coffee, and sugar. The local caudillos ran their little fiefdoms like their own countries. 112 of the 184 members of the legislature in the late 1890s claimed the rank of general. It was a military coup banana republic ruled by dictators.

The discovery of oil changed everything. You have to understand: having oil is a curse. National governments become addicted and dependent on the revenues that come from it. Venezuela is the textbook case. Fighting over this money and how it was distributed was (and still is) at the center of all political activity. People had begun to believe (and still do) that the country is rich because of oil, not because of the productivity or entrepreneurship of the population. By the 80s, that stuff generated 70% of the central government's revenues. By the end of that decade, the country was a textbook petro-state. Inflation, unemployment, widening income gap, expanding slums due to emigration from the countryside to the cites, lack of money due to interest payments that were owed to international lenders, and so forth.Throw in as well a historic population boom. Usually, you need strong economic growth to stabilize such a boom. Instead, the government implemented price controls to help calm the population. This means that the economy became more rigid than it already was and the government set the price for pretty much everything.

The government under President Perez tried to launch a reform program (reducing controls, cutting on spending, strengthening the social safety net for the poor, political decentralization). Unsurprisingly, these weren't popular. There were a few major riots that left hundreds dead, but apparently the reforms were starting to show high rates. Alas, entrenched interests don't like it when the status quo is altered, so everyone came after Perez. Even in his own political party. Then comes Hugo Chavez's coup attempt. Even though he failed and was jailed, he became an overnight political star. Meanwhile, Perez faced a second (failed) coup attempt and was eventually deposed because he gave $17 million to the Nicaraguan president to help her set up a security service against assassination attempts by the Sadinistas. Chavez was granted amnesty by Perez's successor and main rival Rafael Caldera. With his freedom, he started a political movement and crossed the country denouncing corruption, inequality, social exclusion, and the usual set of grievances. He had his eyes on power.

Meanwhile, the country was facing a banking crisis. Revenues were down, world oil prices weren't going up, and the government needed cash. Only way out then was to increase output. So the new president of the state oil company PDVSA launched an initiative that invited international oil companies to return to the country, partner with PDVSA, and produce more oil. It was technically a pragmatic plan: bring in foreign expertise and mobilize large-scale investment without de-nationalizing the industry. Still, it was regarded as heresy by much of the country (because nationalization, state control, and expulsion of the foreigner was still popular). Caldera approved of the reform (there is a funny story to that one) and production started going up. Unfortunately, this meant ignoring OPEC quotas. The end result was a decision in Jakarta that basically amounted to "fuck the quotas". But by then, the Asian financial crisis triggered a crash in the oil price worldwide.

(cont)

(continuing)

You can guess the rest: government spending was cut, people were furious, and Chavez used this force his way into the presidency via election. He immediately began to consolidate all power in his hands, eliminated the upper house of the congress, turned the remaining chamber into a rubber stamp process, stacked the Supreme Court, took direct control of the National Electoral Council (so he could basically control ballot counting in future elections), took away congressional oversight of the army, and of course, took control of PDVSA (moved financial control to the central government, basically killed all accountability and transparency, and started using state money for social spending and subsidies for favored domestic backers/voters and foreign allies). So basically your usual dictatorial "democracy" Elections still "count", but the regime can stay in power through clever maneuvering.

That pretty much brings us to the current situation: Chavez is dead, oil prices are down, revenues and spending are down, price controls are a nightmare, there are food shortages, violence is at a global high, PDVSA suffered a brain drain after the smart engineers were alienated and moved to Colombia, and everything is basically shit.

For more on Venezuela and oil, I would suggest reading Daniel Yergin's "The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World". Particularly chapter 5.

I know it's a copypaste. I wrote the original one awhile back.

And what do you expect out of these threads? People never tackle the real problems, particularly when doing so would require inflicting a shit ton of social and economic pain.

The sensible solution would be to re-implement Perez's ideas and then separating some of the oil earnings into an untouchable sovereign wealth fund, which is what Norway and a bunch of others do. Forces the politicians to rely less on oil and helps insulate the country from "Dutch disease" (influx of oil money leads to an overvalued national currency, exports become relatively more expensive, domestic businesses become less competitive due to cheaper imports, inflation rises, jobs are lost, etc). You'll also have to kill the price controls, ramp up transparency and accountability of the government, and so forth. It's a long list.

The chief problem though is the hardest to fix. And at the end of the day, that would be the people. La "viveza criolla" I believe you all call it. There's just little social trust or capital.

bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-36136282

Why is the BBC publishing this article again?

No.

Because

Stfu retarded Venezuela shill is this the best argument the cia can give you?

A) Upper house elimination is fcking awesome it saves money and streamlines policy since if they're obstructionist the country gets nothing done and if they're not they're a rubber stamp chamber anyways
B) Supreme Court stack
Fucking wow every political party ever does this good job this is such a shitty point to complain about I hope you kil yourself
C) Ok this seems somewhat sketchy but elections were independently monitored by third parties that verified the results so he obviously didn't manipulate vote count
D) Took control of PVDSA

WOW a government leader took control of a government owned company WOW so fucking unrealistic WOW good complaint.

God I wish you all died from your "hyperinflation" because your complaints are such weak ass copy-pasted shit.

There were some protests today in Maracaibo.

noticiaaldia.com/2016/04/lluvia-durante-la-madrugada-provoca-apagones-por-explosion-de-transformadores-en-maracaibo/

"Rain at dawn causes power cuts due to transformers exploding in Maracaibo"

si no sb n:d: d vzla no dg n:d:

"uy n pdt tn td e ctl d l pais y l tsj s ps la csttcn pr e cu-, what's the big deal"

The government did had 1 trillion dollars revenues since the last 15 years. There are ex minister's Chavez declarations that states half of the money have been stolen and no one have done anything about it.

Edmee Betancourt, ex CEO of Venezuelan Central Bank denounced that 25,000 million dollars disappeared just through exchange system in some months and no one have been put in jail due this massive act of corruption.

Venezuela's annual budgets were the biggest ones for 15 years in South American, however the government don't improved the electrical system to minimize the consequences of El Niño's fenomeno. The rest of the countries did even with by far less money, and they still improved their economies.

I don't know but Hugo Chávez and Maduro's government are the most corrupt and the worst ones in the world in the last 15 years. I hope the opposition win this referendum so they can prove they'll do it way better as they have been doing during statal and regional way.

Vengo a figurar.

Does that mean that we'll have power cuts at the same local time (30 minutes later in UTC) after the timezone change?

Guys, please, get the fuck out of your parent's basement and learn about the situation and the corruption of this government.
Fucking gringos.

Calling all my ayyy elmios.

ayy elmio los americanos creyendo que aqui la vaina esta buenisima

Yet US oil companies built large cities when they were exploiting oil back in the 50's.

They had total control of the countrie's economy back then and the country wasn't as miserable as it is now. All while oil was still four times cheaper as it is now.

youtube.com/watch?v=UOQb7Y5QVO8

Guys, the thread is being trolled by assblasted fags from Hispachan's venezuelan board (/ve/). Be sure to go there and tell them to fuck off.

SE PRENDIOOOOOO

hispachan.org/ve/res/523442.html

In case you're wondering where the shitposts come from.

Si mamaguevo pero cuando llueve no me ahogo, veserro

Venezuelan posters are funny.

Public workers already had friday free, right?

Now they have wednesday, thursday and friday free. Only two days of work a week.

elimpulso.com/noticias/nacionales/oposicion-ya-tiene-planillas-para-el-referendo-y-ahora-que

(the electoral entity has 15 working days to verify if the required number of signatures was reached)

15 working days = 8 weeks

The process takes 40 days total.

It will take 6 months, it would have taken 2 months normally.

You're all a bunch of faggots. You either know what's going on in this country but take it for granted or think what's happening to us isn't a big deal.

The fuckin' joy of living in first world countries must be ignorance from both ways, right?

It's not the first world joy, its mental retardation and a little autism added to the mix.

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0/10. Try harder, you autistic negro.

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If you most prols in your country can have ze interwebs, you are part of the first world.

That doesn't make you third world.

Also, first and second world was NATO - Warsaw Pact.
Without a second, how is there a third world?

Read a little bit about Venezuela and how it turned into a third world country.

Our technology's far behind as well. We have internet, yes, but not like yours. Maximum we have 1mbps internet without counting the extremely expensive ones which don't work because of constant zone problems.

Sometimes ignorance isn't bliss.

Once again it's repeated towards you;

Dude, just, shut up man

protests in maracaibo right now

twitter.com/lizardo_jesus/status/725148916707106817

some riots that show up on twitter are near the place where i live, but i won't go outside to verify it.

:^)

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Well, ok then.
You are worse.
I have 4 Mpbs.

Vayan a mamarse un caravana de guevo malditos comunistas

You get the point.

This thread is full of retards, as said.

some people are lucky and can get 10mbps from cantv, most people have shit internet (drops often or has a speed way lower than it should be)

wow, it's like you're from 1986 or some shit and someone just teleported you to 2016 with a time machine

"third world" is generally understood to mean "developing country"

I have the so called 10mbps from cantv, it works from 2:00am~5:00 sometimes if you are lucky

gringos hablando de venezuela

venga pa aca pa vean como es el beta aqui

But since there are underdeveloped counties, are they the 4rth world?

And, is China 1 or 3?
What about the Balkans?

My point is, this "first world" generalization is not a good enough categorization any more.

Point is, Venezuela is fucked. Not so hard to understand you fucking faggot

no shit, "1st/2nd/3rd world country" are outdated terms, but you already understand what they mean so there's no need to be pedantic

WE ARE ALL FUCKED!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

a shitton of countries are third world countries

Once again, your point crushed by your Cold War terminologies.

i'm not that guy

So, sweden is third world?

:^)

Ask all the sand monkeys in that country.

:^)

Seriously, if Thump wins.
I hope he nukes us all.

Trump isn't for acceleration, user.

He'll just push the brakes. No nukes, only dreams.

We'll have to skip the whole nuclear war, and just wait for the Aliens to arrive.

What the heck are you talking about, my yankee amigo?

Just tell CIA to hurry up and take this assholes out of the way.

People is starting to commit suicide.

These*

I'm not from the US, tho. I'm your friendly HUE neighbor

GOOD!

…not friendly enough, tho.
I've not received my tires from Brazil.

I just want to survive this XXI century socialism bullshit, gringo.

;-:

Today I learned the spanish for "samefag" is "samefageo"

...

JUST

spanish for "samefag" is "samefag", "samefageo" is "samefagging"

people still use spanish prefixes/suffixes for loanwords

What is the heaven's name is calima?

1. google calima
2. click on the spanish wikipedia article
3. click on "english"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haze

For fuck's sake

usnews.com/news/business/articles/2016-04-27/protests-as-venezuela-embraces-2-day-workweek-to-save-power

lol

also, it's funny how telesur and other officialism-leaning places say that allup is right wing

They're moderate-left at best, there's no popular right wing party in venezuela because nobody votes for the right since Perez's plan avila.

reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-food-widerimage-idUSKCN0XO1OZ

i really don't know how people that earn minimum wage and don't have credit cards live

do you really have to post dumb bullshit in every thread that has the word "venezuela" in it?

how does someone in germany (for example) learn about venezuela by leaving their basement?

Well, apparently there is the book this user suggested: >>657835
Also, this website:
caracaschronicles.com/

what i meant was: wouldn't they learn more by staying in their basement?

bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-36149494

BBC reporting on el chiguire bipolar? lol

panampost.com/sabrina-martin/2016/05/02/hungry-venezuelan-soldiers-arrested-after-stealing-goats/

lol what the fuck is this

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KNOWN US SHILLS

FUCK OFF RIGHT WING VENEZUELANS GO TO Holla Forums

venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10395

Edited and founded by THIS guy:

mises.org/profile/fergus-hodgson

AHA what a joke. All you fucking retards eating spoonfed propaganda.

Which propagandist published this story?

lapatilla.com/site/2016/05/02/militares-del-fuerte-manaure-robaron-seis-chivos-porque-no-tenian-que-comer/

motherfucker, you made me laugh

go to the actual article here:

caracaschronicles.com/2014/02/20/the-game-changed/

you can see the links in it.

lapatilla is a pretty shitty clickbait site, go to the actual trustworthy sources:

diarioelcaroreno.com.ve/web/2016/05/02/residentes-denunciaron-a-militares-del-fuerte-manaure-por-matar-a-sus-chivos/

el-nacional.com/sucesos/funcionarios-Ejercito-detenidos-robar-chivos_0_839916099.html

also, the only sites that reported it in english are fox news and panampost. i'm not just going to link articles in spanish and tell everyone to use google translate.

and keep in mind that the caracaschronicles article was written in february 20 and it wasn't updated, so it obviously wouldn't report deaths that happened in the 21st, they're not time travelers.

some deaths described in that paragraph and the linked article weren't known or happened only after the caracaschronicles article was written.

and well, here's more info about the last paragraph, since it's pretty useless, this gives more info about francisco toro's anti-chavez stance: narconews.com/Issue30/article584.html

Venezuela state opposition leader killed (Germán Mavares, Lara, UNT)

yahoo.com/news/venezuela-state-opposition-leader-killed-181807188.html?ref=gs

bump

holy shit Venezuela is killing itself!

Seriously leftypol was socialism i.e. nationalizing the oil and not diversifying the economy the worst thing for Venezuela ?

theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/05/venezuela-is-falling-apart/481755/

youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE

1. venezuela is a capitalism country
2. venezuela is less poor since Chavez than it was before

I think that the problem is with Maduro populist policies of not increasing taxes and controlling the prices under the market value, which creates a black market. Also the capitalists are doing their job in fucking the economy.

Article is clickbait.

Mavares was an opposition leader, but there are several such opposition parties.

Mavares was not the leader of the main opposition party.

seriously, just look at the image

Why would he increase taxes?

And well, didn't all this shit start with Chávez's expropriations (sp?)?

I think I'm starting to get why everyone is shrieking about Venezuela and how it is, in defiance even of probability, the most socialist nation every to socialize a social.

The societal decay of the West is starting to rear its head as neoliberalism eats away at our livelihoods, but the hacks at Forbes got incredibly lucky: Chavez, the biggest fucking idiot to ever have power in the 21st century, was meandering around with existing national wealth and giving people free shit so people will like him, lacking any sort of ideological guidance, and called himself a "socialist" while he did it.

The CIA was probably going to kill him until they realized that, unlike Allende, he was more useful alive than dead.

Also, i'm pretty sure that the place on the image on the top (i don't know what it's called, i've never gone to these places) hasn't changed. I think that Salto Angel looks the same now as it did 20 years ago too.

That's what I mean. The picture is obviously used here for b8, but I think it's what classcucks really believe: that without "soshlizum", slums do not exist.

csmonitor.com/World/2016/0515/Venezuela-s-Maduro-threatens-to-jail-factory-owners

Venezuela's Maduro threatens to jail factory owners

Nicolas Maduro is a retard. Price controls don't work in capitalism (social democracy is still capitalism).

My recommendation to Venezuela
- Lift all price controls on the private sector. Let merchants charge what the market will bear.
- Institute universal basic income in Venezuela to ensure that the people have enough money to make rent and feed themselves and their families. Instead of trying to control the prices, it makes more sense to just give the poor money so that they can buy things. This will redistribute wealth from the rich (via inflation) to the poor (via basic income payments).
- Diversify the economy (don't rely so much on oil) so that Venezuela is able to export more than just oil
- Import whatever natural resources they need that they don't have with the hard currency generated from exports (import finished goods/services temporarily until Venezuela develops their human capital enough to provide these goods and services themselves)

that's called "minimum wage" afaik
it's around 100% higher now compared to what it was in december, and it feels like the minimum wage was never raised, since the prices of everything raised too.

there's a problem: companies don't export things in venezuela. for example, anything from polar that you see outside venezuela is made in colombia. why would anyone export things when there are shortages on the local market?

(also, not very related but 1lt milk cartons cost around $0.80 in colombia but, on the street, they cost around 4000 BsF here, which is around $4 black market and $10 on the official dollar prices that only companies can get.)

...

the point is, it doesn't work. it will be useless, it doesn't matter if you have or don't have to work for it, because inflation still exists.

if there is one coup the CIA should have succeeded in its the Venezuelean one

They don't care about what happens in this chunk of land anymore, and international organizations can't do shit about changing anything in Venezuela.

latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2016/05/19/zapatero-finishes-meeting-with-venezuelan-opposition-leaders/

channelnewsasia.com/news/world/mediators-push-for/2801274.html

#NoDialogamosConDictadura (we don't dialogue with dictatorships) is trending

So is the basic consensus among socialist in venezuela that Maduro is out of his depth?

"there's nothing we can do about inflation!"

Nicolas Maduro is seen as the village idiot. A bus driver with no college education. Whereas Hugo Chavez actually went to college at a military academy. Graduated near the top of his class. Well-read. He wasn't a dumb jock type.

Though Chavismo set Venezuela on a self-destructive course before Maduro even got in there. Before Hugo Chavez died, the country was experiencing shortages of basic goods, long queues for basic goods, significant inflation (though not the absolutely crazy inflation seen today), etc. While selling oil for like $115/barrel. lol.

It was only a matter of time before Chavismo would ruin the country. Add Venezuela to the left-wing graveyard of the Soviet Union, Cuba, Zimbabwe and various Latin American countries. Norway is a social democracy too and they have lots of oil too. The Nordic Model works. It has the right mix of capitalism and government intervention. The stuff that the Soviet Union/Cuba/Venezuela/Sandinistas/Zimbabwe//etc. try to do doesn't work. Way too much government intervention leads to clusterfuck situations that you didn't even foresee.

Norway is definitely not perfect. But it's probably got the best mixed economy on the planet. If not one of the best

All they have to do is remove the price controls and scrap CADIVI (the fixed currency exchange) and let the Bolivar float. Then domestic production will return to normal and smuggling will stop.

This will screw over the poor. But the poverty line in Venezuela right now is like 80% anyway. lol. So it's not like the price controls are actually alleviating poverty at all. They could raise the national minimum wage to a level that would enable workers to purchase what they need at market rates at any rate. But domestic production has to be stabilized first obviously. Just merely raising the minimum wage without boosting domestic production isn't going to accomplish anything. Just more inflation as you said.

Chávez acted like an uneducated person because poor people felt a connection to him that way. It's called "populism"

fortune.com/2016/05/20/coke-venezuela-suspends/

huh