Bitcoin Forum

As a continuation of the previous thread: Enjoy comunism: Venezuela raises monthly minimum wage to $2.40 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5334667.msg56916901#msg56916901) today we can continue to see that because communists consider wealth as a cake, rather than as something dynamic that you can create, what they end up doing is distributing misery with simplistic measures:


source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/venezuela-to-launch-cbdc-in-october-and-cut-six-zeros-from-its-currency

The bad part of the situation in Venezuela does not seem to have a solution in the short term. It does not appear that Biden is willing to invade the country. Not for a humanitarian issue and not for oil. And the little opposition left in the country is too weakened by hunger to mount a revolution. .

The title may be misleading.
In my country the "raging inflation" has started after "communism has died and got replaced by democracy"(*).
After some years, when the inflation was not that bad any longer they've cut 4 zeros from our currency.

So it may not be related that much to communism. I don't want (by any mean) to say that communism would be good, just democracies, especially the not 100% working ones, should also be afraid of this kind of scenarios (unless using bitcoin, obviously ;D )


(*) Clarification needed:
Although officially communism has died here (together with Ceausescu), unofficially it still lives even after 30+ years. The democracy is still unbelievably fragile because the important people from the old regime or their descendants are infiltrated directly or indirectly in all the levels of power, from parts and parliament to intelligence and justice, also obviously media and businesses. So yeah, between 1989 and 2005 the democracy was only on paper, the economy was struggling collapsing and so on. Bad times. And in 2005 we got 4 zeros removed from our currency.

Venezuela is a famous energy country, and its oil reserves rank first in the world.

However, the Venezuelan government puts its own economy on oil, and a series of events triggered by the plunge in oil prices eventually became the fuse for Venezuelan inflation. At present. , Venezuela’s inflation is very serious, and the main reasons for its increasing inflation are: the government's excessive dependence on the oil economy, the implementation of foreign exchange controls, the government’s excessive currency issuance, and the influence of international factors.

The government’s corruption and incompetence and wrong economic policies make The Venezuelan economy collapsed.

The best way to deal with inflation is to control the money supply, and this is what Bitcoin can do.

Inflation exists on both democratic and communist nations, and these hyper inflation happened due to the utter rate of corruption by the government and poor monetary policies, cutting down the zeros may not bring any effect in the valuation of their currency and introduction of CBDC also is similar to the shit as their fiat. Better if they move to a decentralized asset like bitcoin and accept it as legal tender.

If everything is state owned, how can it exactly inflate though especially if they have a lot of resources and they don't rely too much on exports? Of course the value of goods increases overtime, I mean that's normal for any economy that has money in it's circulation. If they move to bitcoin, they won't have any control over their people that's why they pursue CBDC.

Things are designed for us to be productive. If you are not productive and solving very useful problems, then don't eat... If you eat without contributing anything, price will definitely rise because there will more demand (and less supply/production), and you are adding to the demand . Some think poor productivity can be solved by involving/enslaving robots to do the job for us... That can't happen without serious consequences.

So, we need to work really hard to produce more so that there will be enough to drive down prices of things and increase the value of our currencies.

Let's put this way:

Enjoying power groups interfering indebtedly with free markets.

When they do this by design, as in communism, or by "accident" (let's be gentle and put it this way") as in broken democracies, this is recipe for disaster.

Show for narrow-minded people, nothing more ... Removed 6 zeros in order to get another 9 zeros ... Stupidity and nonsense, instead of real steps to diversify the economy and solve current problems. They still do not understand that living only on oil is stupid and risky, and freedom, legality, equality, high-quality interaction within the country and with external partners is the way to change the situation. True, now they will have to come to terms with the fact that it is always easier and faster to destroy than to create. That 1 year of destruction = 3 years of restoration, and the more years they destroy, the further away from them restoration and normal life will be. And "reducing" zeros is not a solution to problems, it is just a reduction in the number of zeros, nothing more!

I'm pretty sure the Venezuelan government knows cutting zeros from their currency isn't a fix for anything other than convenience, i.e, so that people don't have to cart around their cash in wheelbarrows.  So that's kind of a stupid argument by the media, but not a surprising one, since the media is as bad or worse than any government known to man (in my very humble opinion).

The cutting of zeros is a short-term "solution", though it's just a Band Aid that doesn't treat the actual problem.  I don't follow Venezuelan politics or even keep up to date on their pitiful situation, but I'd imagine that they'll eventually get help from another country in the form of a loan or some other deal--but that depends on who's in charge in Venezuela, and it doesn't appear that the current leadership is competent or willing to ask for help (or to work on a fix themselves).

Say what?  Why would the US invade Venezuela?  Why should we?  I don't know about you or anyone else, but I'm tired of the US trying to be the world's moral police.  We're in no position to do that anymore, if we ever were.  Nor am I confident that the US could afford to render aid to Venezuela--we've got our own crises forming here, and it's going to get a hell of a lot worse before it gets better.

Oh, common, the US has a lot of oil, it has thousands of wells that are stopped because there was simply no demand, there are enormous reserves, why would they invade a country to get the costliest oil in the world? And don't even mention Iraq, the largest fields there, as well as a lot of smaller ones, are usually explored by the Iraq government in partnership with China Petroleum.
The first deal Iraq signed after the fall of Saddam was with China (https://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/08/30/iraq.china.oil.deal/), not the US.



If you suffer from a disease for 30 years do you expect both the operation and the recuperation to be painless?
Every time somebody tells me how hard some countries are trying to narrow the gap to the western world and I look at the map I always have a feeling that the closer you were to Moscow the harder it gets. Hungary>Romania>Moldova>Belarus.

But, back to Venezuela, the first thing that popped into my mind was hearing about denomination, do they afford to print the new notes (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-27/venezuela-faces-its-strangest-shortage-yet-as-inflation-explodes)? Of course, it will be a lot cheaper due to the quantity but they will have to print all the notes, not just a new batch and with the coffers even "emptier" if that is even a word, who is going to do it for them at the risk of never getting paid?

And, what about the Petro???
The currency that could rival Bitcoin? Backed by true oil reserves?

Well, after 40 years of disease and quite a surgery, I didn't expect that after more 30 years the healing is far from complete...
The map thing is a very good point though. Sadly.



While Venezuela should not spend extra money on printing new bills, it should not be a big problem, since most probably the process will take years and both currencies will go in parallel for quite a while. So they only have to print a little bit bigger batches, that's all. And Petro... well... LOL...



I tend to believe that they keep that oil for later deliberately. And not necessarily for cars and electricity. Keep in mind that half of the fibers in your clothes is probably coming from oil and gas.

Venezuela has to know that cutting down on zeros in there currency would not bring any positive change because that is not the solution. Venezuela is rich in oil just like Nigeria but these two countries are facing heavy corrupt practices. To leave corrupt ways is the solution and not CBDC but to fix corruption. Digital currency has no effect with Fiat and if officials have a way of being manipulative with it, the corruption will increase but I don't see digital currency having any major contribution to the GDP of a country but only for convenience of financial activities but no major effect to the economy.

I remember they already issued a crypto back in 2018 (petro coin) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petro_(cryptocurrency)). I couldn't even find it listed on coinmarketcap or coingecko, so I guess it went that badly. It didn't seem to help the country's economy in the slightest. After all, the GDP per capita (https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/) is still dropping year after year, and it's hard to imagine a country that's in a worse state than Venezuela. Another crypto launch is definitely not going to cut it. What they need is a totally different government, a lot of help from other countries and readiness to fight corruption strongly.

Are they delusional?

Removing zeroes does not cure the underlying economic malaise. The best it's going to do is make transacting a bit easier in day to day life, but that's pretty much it.

The same thing happened with Zimbabwe, they revalued their currency multiple times and caused absolutely no change in the fundamentals of their country's economy. Riduculous stuff if you ask me.

There is a lot of communism and fascism today (that are not much different at all) even in so called democratic countries, and only difference is in stages.
When people realize they live in communism and dictatorial state it will be too late to change something and blood will be spilled already.
Cutting zeroes from their Venezuelan currency won't help them, and they can check history of all other countries that tried that strategy before, but imagine if they introduce Bitcoin as a legal tender (unlikely to ever happen).

I know-how is the inflection rising on Venezuela and some people are even using money as a useless piece of paper, in order to buy a chicken to eat you have to pay too much money and some criminals kill people only for 100 bucks or even less. That's what's know from Venezuela, but removing 6 zeros and even 60 zeros won't change anything. So basically, if people were working for 1000000(1m) Bolivar per month and they had to pay 10000000(10m) for food, now they will work for 1 bolivar and they have to pay 10 Bolivar for food. Nothing changes and people's purchasing power is still the same and also the inflection is still rising. Their government just will pay too much funds and resources to print new money papers and this will make everything even worst for them.

Lol! It seems op has issue with communism only, rather than the actual reasons of hyper inflation in Venezuela. The problem of Hyperinflation started since the current president came to the power in 2013. It took him only 3 years to push the country into Hyperinflation and he was forced to declare an emergency. I frankly don't see any hand of communism in here!

Communism actually ruined former Soviet union and currently ruining North Korea and China to some extent. Another country Zimbabwe is also facing same issues but communism has never taken a step in that country. So honestly I don't see how communism is ruining Venezuela. It's the democratic government that is ruining the country even after sitting on the biggest oil reserve in the whole world.

With all of what Venezuela has gone through for the past several years, Maduro and his economic team should have already learned a lot of lessons. But it seems they haven't. On the contrary, things seem to become worse. In 2018, Maduro only cut 5 zeros. In 2021, instead of improving, they're now cutting 6 zeros.

It looks as if they miss the whole point. Cutting zeros won't improve the economy. Even shifting to the use of cryptocurrency won't matter much to their crumbling economy. They failed with Petro; there's not enough reason why they won't with a CBDC or a digital bolivar.

Modernizing the monetary system by going digital does not actually revitalize the economy. As a matter of fact, it might only make things worse. Hyperinflation is not addressed by shifting into mobile banking and online payment system. In the first place, substituting hard cash with CBDC is misplaced in a country where smart phone and internet penetrations are rather low. Internet services are not affordable either. 

Due some acquittances, I have quite decent information about what is up in Venezuela. One of the things that is happening is that obviously people are ignoring as much as possible the local currency. Whether bitcoin our USD, they are definitely  not getting to use the local coin regularly. The main exception are employees with salaries denominated in bolivars, in which case they have to undertake extra activities to make sure they  get to eat everyday or every other day anyway.

The problem is that this country is going to swing from communist to a ferocious if not dictatorial regime which may solve some issues and create newer ones.

I do not think that the issue is related to communism, because there are many economically successful communist regimes, but the issue is related to mismanagement, corruption and the failed government that did not succeed in solving the basic economic problems and instead resorts to temporary solutions instead of searching for a solution to the problem from its roots.
Removing 6 zeros from the currency is a ridiculous game that will not solve the intractable economic problems in Venezuela. It is already a farce. Inflation will continue because they pump more worthless paper currency and they think that this will solve the problem, but the truth is that this will complicate the problem so that it becomes impossible to solve and the economy collapses .

Biden will consider invasion once the oil prices are back to $120 per barrel level. At current prices, the oil deposits in Venezuela doesn't make much of a profit. But Biden/Kamala regime has been moving closer to Venezuela, in terms of economic policies. The first thing Biden did after coming to power was to increase the taxes, left, right and the center. And the second thing was to sabotage various shale oil and pipeline projects. This has ensured sky high profits for the OPEC and higher inflation levels in the United States. I hope Biden will soon be able to push crude oil to $100-$120 level. Then Kamala will congratulate him by saying "we did it Joe!".

Actually the post is a continuation of the other one, in which I think you also commented, and how communism ends up being a disaster, although it is very nice in theory, what I wanted to reflect are the consequences of applying it as it is. In the fall of the USSR there was also a hyperinflationary collapse, which is not to say that hyperinflationary scenarios are exclusive to communism. I think fillippone specifies it well:


I guess you know well what you are talking about, as I remember that Italy before joining the Euro was also famous for inflation.


I mentioned that because in the previous thread it was said that the USA does not intervene in Cuba because there are only poor people there and they have nothing to take out, unlike Iraq where there was oil. If that is the reason, it is not understood why it does not invade Venezuela.


I didn't know that. But is it the hardest to extract because of the way it is managed in Venezuela or is there something in the reserves that makes it especially difficult to extract the oil?

I guessed that  ;), but I am sure that you got my point. And yes, fillippone has found pretty much the best way to express it in words.

I heard that they have official and unofficial-real rate for exchanging their worthless bolivar paper money for other fiat currencies, but I bet there are many people on streets who are doing this exchanges just to survive.
It's crazy that something like this can happen to a country with such rich natural resources and position in world but greed and corruption knows no limits, and similar thing is not far away from US and other western countries.

Isn't communism by it's definition already dictatorial system of governance, and we saw how that ended up in other countries.
China is moving to new age communism with complete totalitarian system of control, every segment of society is controlled and tracked, problem is that this ''virus'' is now spreading globally.

Cubans were recently revolting against the government in cuba. Venezuela and north korea may try to improve economic conditions for citizens, to prevent them from revolting as well.

Venezuela was once one of the wealthiest nations in south america. In the present day I do not believe they have the start up capital or technical sophistication to rollout a CBDC. Their failing infrastructure, such as the caracas dam which once supplied free electricity that venezuelans used to mine bitcoin appears to have fallen into disrepair. With no real campaign or movement devoted towards improving matters. A venezuelan CBDC rollout would require additional infrastructure and support which venezuela appears unable to supply or maintain.

If venezuela was serious about improving their economy, they would focus on crude production and refinement. To create jobs and give the local economy a big push.

The Venezuelan CBDC was rolled out in 2018 (₽, Petro). On paper, it was claimed that the value of 1 Petro is equal to the price of 1 barrel of crude oil. But the Venezuelan government failed to show how the prices can be linked to the crude prices and very soon this coin became defunct. The Washington Post called Petro as the "most obviously horrible investment ever", and this can be said about most of the other CBDCs as well. In the end, Petro turned out to be just another sham from the Venezuelan regime.

Removing zeroes is a common "solution" for latin america countries

We lived that in Brazil when I was a kid. I will show you some pictures:
https://site-porque.s3.amazonaws.com/jk-2.jpg

Do you see the value of 100000 in the banknote? You can also see the stamp of 100. The government just cut off 3 zeroes from our money in the 80s and 90s

One more example here. Original 10000 banknote became 10:
http://www.giesbrecht.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/dez-mil-cruzeiros-cruzados-carimbo-1024x683.jpg

Brazil managed to take care of the inflation later on after a few decades... if we only had bitcoin back then, certainly a lot of people would have a better life here.

Inflation is a big issue all over Latin America. Apart from Venezuela, Argentina is one country that was very famous for hyperinflation until recently. Actually this is a problem with all the economies, which are overdependent on any one sector. In case of Brazil, the dependence is on agrobusiness and whenever the ethanol or soya prices drop, it puts the economy under enormous pressure. Same was seen in Russia recently. Their economy is overdependent on oil, and RUR lost almost 60% of its value when crude prices plummeted.

Let's see
- an armed paramilitary group with help of NK and other Communist countries soldiers takes control
- a president dictator  for 30 years with clear marxist Leninist doctrine
- a party that identifies itself as socialist
- confiscation of land, house and businesses
- redistribution of wealth to the "workers" and the "poor"
 30 years later
-famine and poverty all over

If this ain't communism then what happened in the USSR is not communism either.

Robert Mugabe allied with the Soviet bloc during the cold war. And ironically this meant that even the left-wing US politicians had to support minority white governments in the three southern African nations (Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia). Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho were like buffer states under the influence of South Africa, while the other two countries (Mozambique, Angola) had communist regimes in power and the rebels (UNITA/RENAMO) were supported by South Africa and the NATO bloc nations.

My use of the term "communism" is perhaps a bit broad. In general I mean:



Countries that end up in hyperinflation are not typically countries with low taxes, low regulations, ease of business creation, etc. They tend to be the opposite, countries with a lot of intervention in the economy, with rampant and growing public spending, in a headlong rush that stifles private initiative as the engine of economic activity. In general, I would call the latter "communist", although some of them, if we are to speak precisely, are not technically so.

Now there are no purely socialist or communist states as they were before. Venezuela is now just an economically backward state. Of course, removing the six zeros on your bolivar banknotes is necessary at least to simplify the calculations. However, this will absolutely not affect the economic state of the country. Here we need to systematically raise the economy. Changing money to circulate for euro, pound or bitcoin will hardly give anything if there is no economic growth.

This gives the impression of "we have an economic crisis, still instead of doing anything productive to solve it, we are simply going to cover our eyes and ignore the root problem". Indeed, what exactly are they trying to achieve by cutting the 6 zeros?

The only reason that I can think of is to psychologically comfort the citizens that there is no inflation problem, and that everything is in order.

Hopefully the citizens do wake up to this ploy and realise that they are getting duped still. But it's encouraging that a lot of Venezuelans are turning to decentralised cryptos already.

Don't try to defend something that can never be defended. Pure socialist/communist states do exist, and examples are Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea. Venezuela was a relatively prosperous country, before the socialists came to power in 1999. Venezuela was not economically backward, at least when compared to its neighbors. When Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999, he nationalized almost all the businesses and the economy collapsed as a result. It will take many decades for them to recover, even if they go back to capitalism.

The Venezuelan government is studying the mathematical renaming of its currency the sovereign bolivar to make it easier for large corporations to pay. This redirection will reduce to six zeros, making it easier to calculate payments that have now reached higher levels although no official announcement has been made yet. Economically they are very weak venezuela's problem is no longer a matter of their internal politics this crisis has now become a threat to peace on the whole continent this will take time to change.

That’s really bad, their government keeps making everything worse for the people in that country. Most of the times the problem that a country is having can be caused by the leaders. Although I do know some people may doubt this and maybe find other irrelevant opinions to point at as the cause of their problems, but I do say it starts with the government. Most of those in power are usually corrupt and due to it, it affects the country because of how these corrupt leaders runs it. And it’s very bad when there is no one that can stand against them and speak for the people, they always have to do whatever these bad leaders say. If the government is fixed, then they can fix their economy.

The elimination of the zeros is something that no longer makes sense, at an economic level in a country with a "normal" economy it is equivalent to valuing its currency, its value, but in Venezuela no, in Venezuela removing the 6 zeros is so that the amounts can fit in a document, be it a purchase or a sale, because in the same way the zeros will begin to appear on the right and very quickly.

This will not improve inflation, this will bring comfort to handle figures, in Venezuela what is handled is the dollar or any foreign currency, be it EURO, Colombian pesos, among others, the problem will continue. The communism of Venezuela is the one that really ended everything, and they are exploiting gold reserves, the debt that it maintains with China, Russia practically gave those lands to those countries so that they would exploit it and from there the payment would come out, what happens is that that does not appear in the news, because it is what is really happening, so removing the zeros, it really is nothing, the economic situation has no solution, unless all the rulers leave and that is something impossible, at less so now.

Removing zeroes will not work, as it was tried manytimes before. The original Venezuelan Bolivar was introduced in 1879. The first time they did redenomination was in 2008, when Bolívar Fuerte replaced the original Bolivar at a rate of 1 to 1000. Then in 2018, Bolívar Soberano replaced Bolívar Fuerte at a rate of 1 to 100,000. The government needs to understand that by removing zeroes, they can't control the inflation rate. I am glad that in my country we have a sensible government, at least in this regard.

Bump.

I am going to update this thread, so that it is not forgotten, because a parallel thread has appeared wanting to deny the obvious, and saying that hyperinflation in Venezuela has nothing to do with Communism.

This is obviously affirmed by a communist CM and has nothing to do with reality, since hyperinflation is characteristic of communist countries:

Hyperinflation in early Soviet Russia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_early_Soviet_Russia)

The Soviet Hyperinflation: Its Origins and Impact throughout the Former Republics  (https://www.jstor.org/stable/152269)

The (attempted) price control, which has been repeatedly proven historically to be a disaster since the Edict of Diocletian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_on_Maximum_Prices).

The central planning of the economy that is a disaster from which the saying came out: "They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/06/soviet-union-kitchen-table-russian-revolution-centenary-togetherness)"

Let it not be forgotten that the Venezuelan regime is communist, no matter how much they want to deny it:

"In more recent times a Bolivarian communism has developed in Latin America supported by the old communist dictatorship of Cuba. The greatest exponent has been Venezuela's Chavez and Maduro, a tyranny admired by Leninist-Communist Spanish party Podemos, that in just twenty years has completely destroyed a rich country, which owns the largest oil reserves on the planet (larger than Saudi Arabia!), making 15% of its population flee into exile and provoking the same result Communism has always had: repression, torture, enormous corruption,
destruction of freedom and death; hunger and misery for the people and luxury for its leaders."

Source: The massive failure of Communism (https://www.fpcs.es/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/The-massive-failure-of-Communism.pdf)

It is also worth quoting the principle, which is a good summary:

"I keep engraved in my memory memories of my trip to the Soviet Union in 1983: the fear of the people, the oppressive police presence, the empty shelves in the shops, the desperate black street market and the central lanes of some Moscow avenues reserved for the ZiL limousines of the leaders of the Communist Party. I also remember the fall of the Iron Curtain a few years later and the indelible images of a family fleeing from East Germany and coming out of their ramshackle Trabant car, just across the border from Czechoslovakia, to embrace each other in tears celebrating their recovered freedom.
 
In the long history of humanity there has never been an ideology more tyrannical or more criminal than Communism, which imprisoned a billion people in its own countries and murdered more than 100 million human beings, five times more than Hitler's and his National Socialism's horrible genocide (Rummel, 1987; Courtois et al, 1997). In absolute terms most of the Communist murders were committed by Lenin and Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao in China. In relative terms the greatest communist atrocity corresponds to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, who executed a quarter of their country's population (two million people). In fact, after a century of communist experiments in dozens of countries on four continents we do not find a single example, not one, in which communism has not been synonymous with the destruction of freedom, repression, torture and death, corruption, poverty for the people and luxurious lifestyles for the Party's leaders. Communism was so hellish that the Communist states had to erect walls and wire fences at the borders not to prevent foreigners from entering, but to prevent their own citizens from leaving, eager to flee. It was the first time in
history that borders became the walls of a prison for the citizens of the country."

So that it is not forgotten.

This is the ''solution'' they use in all countries with hyperinflation, and you can find similar example in ex Yugoslavia who in 1992, 1993 and 1994 had paper bills with up to eleven zeros, 10 billion 50 billion and even 500 billion, than they cut zeroes and printed new bills in next few years.
Below is posted one of them that is more famous with face of Nikola Tesla, that can be purchased online even today as collectibles item.
In years after that they printed bunch of paper bills reducing zeros every time, and there was no Bitcoin or other alternative for people at that time.
This was one more example of what communism and socialism results are.

https://i.imgur.com/KIucxT6.jpg
Vice article (https://www.vice.com/en/article/4w38wq/poorest-billionaires-serbia-876) talking about country with world's poorest billionaires  8)

I think the part where it's a threat to the whole continent is a bit of an overstatement because an economic crisis like this doesn't really affect neighboring countries unless in terms of migration. I think what needs to be done is clean the financial laws in the country because a disheveled laws in terms of finance is only going to make things much worse, at the least when they recover, another problem is solved again.

The incompetent government in Venezuela is certainly partly to blame. But not exclusively. Venezuela has a long and troubled history due largely to its oil wealth. Communist states are a bad idea, but they don't tend to arise out of nowhere; they are a misguided attempt to fix the failures of the preceding system. I think it's overly simplistic to blame everything on the Red Menace. Reality tends to be coloured more in shades of grey.


If you are trying to make a general point that hyperinflation occurs exclusively in communist states, and is an inevitability, then this statement is misleading and untrue.


??? I wouldn't worry about that happening.

"there are many economically successful communist regimes" - do you have such a subtle sense of humor? Or such fat fantasies? :) No offense - you can give 1-2 examples from "successful communist regimes" to understand what "success" means to you ... I lived part of my life in a country that built "developed socialism" and paved the way to "communism", and I will tell you this - I regret the lost years "in a successful mode", and I perfectly remember "all the successes" and "achievements" that will make your hair stand on end on your head ...

I'm not a communist, but I can give you one example: "China" isn't an economically successful communist country? Of course, I am not talking about politics here, but about the economy only. The Chinese political system is tyrannical and dictatorial, and there is a lot of injustice in the country, but economically, China is one of the major economic powers in the world and ranks second directly after the United States:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-by-gdp (https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-by-gdp)

Basically, I am not defending or talking about communism, but the meaning of my words is that communism is not the reason for the collapse of the economy, but rather the failed administration and corrupt governments.

LOL.. even one example is enough for me. I have talked to some of my friends who are ardent supporters of the communist party. When I ask them why socialist countries such as Cuba and Venezuela are in such poor state, they tell me that these countries are not "real" communist/socialist countries. They provide the example of New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden.etc. The claim is that the ruling parties in these countries follow socialism, which is far from reality. If these countries actually had a socialist economy, then they would be as worse as Zimbabwe or Somalia.

Without the support of the West in 1990-2000+, there would have been no "success for China." Well, it is difficult to call the system, in its pure form, communist. This is a mixture of a totalitarian system, with elements of "manual economic freedom". But as we observe now, totalitarianism is beginning to regain its positions, and it will soon be difficult for "free business". State control and influence is already working, and there is still a smooth transition of management from private owners to state "henchmen"

That is exactly the part that capitalists always want to ignore. Communist regime in Venezuela lived for so many years, under Chavez they still had problems, not this much and they were handling well enough but it was not this bad, same goes for Cuba these days, Castro managed to make things a little bit more calm there, they might be behind the world in many things like cars, technology and entertainment but they all lived a healthy life with shelter and food for decades (after a huge trouble when revolution happened, it took a while to get there) but when Castro died, so did Cuban dream as well and now it sucks.

However, nobody talks about the fact that the puppets USA installed before these revolutions literally sold the nation, all the oils and everything were sold, given to American companies, and in return they were given trinkets, tiny fractions of what it worths. Which is why neither is good, a proper democracy what these nations need, not an American capitalist puppet, not a communist dictator, a democratic proper nation needs to be built.

Transition of ownership is from successful private individuals to political proxies. And this is not communism. In communism, the state controls everything, and not the individual. One example is the takeover of Yukos by the Russian government in 2004. Another example is the seizure of private business in Venezuela when Hugo Chavez was the president. This is not happening in China. In China the government understands that socialism/communism never works in real life and therefore they have come up with an authoritarian system which is combined with capitalism.

Well, the example with YUKOS is generally not about communism - in Russia there is a mixture of banditry (domestic politics) and terrorism (foreign policy) ...
In China, everything is more complicated - there are communist ideas of the party, and totalitarianism, and the desire to be rich and respected, but not like Kim Jong-un, one among millions of half-dead vegetable citizens ... On the other hand, an experiment with economic "freedoms" in China showed that everything worked out, but on the other hand, some "wrong personalities" appeared - rich, influential, with some Western values ​​and a craving for freedom. And this is already "evil" for the ruling elite ... Therefore, they will now have to "tighten the screws" a little, and in some cases transfer some private businesses under state administration ... If the owners do not agree to play by the given rules

After Xi Jinping came to power, there have been a tightening of government control, and this is not restricted to any particular region in China. Xinjing and Hong Kong are well publicized because the people there have supporters in western nations. But the same is happening in the other provinces as well. The Chinese regime has now realized that now they don't need to be dependent on the western investors to bring new business. So previously they were trying to paint a picture of a liberalized country allowing some democracy and that attempt has been abandoned now.

Why would anybody even want to invade that crap hole?

It would turn out just like Afghanistan. You cannot fix these people.

Deleting zeros from a currency is just another way of saying "our currency is dead". Turkey did the same thing few years ago and the first "0" already came back.

I think those that suggest Biden invade Venezuela because of their problem don't understand the roles the US government has played since the year 2017 when sanctioned people so that Maduro won't enrich himself through illegal mining and oil operations.
The problem of Venezuela is still the same thing political corruption and if no solution provides the country will still experience the same issue even after they issue crypto due to their communism level.

Having said that, it is not everything that the US government has to fix when the people themselves are not ready for the corrections.

Certainly, +1 on that. Again, not a defender of communism as a viable and likeable way of governing and tbh I do not think Venezuela is truly communist. But, beyond that, you will certainly admit that Erdogan is not a communist leader precisely, and you may see how the Turkish Lira is in hyperinflation. A few countries in Africa y, this is me guessing, Afghan currency are on the same path and none of these could be classed as communist regimes.

Inflation is a hidden tax from an irresponsible government to their citizens.


"That people" of which I happen to know a few do not need fixing. They are mostly tired of their government and what they are doing to the country. Venezuela was one of the best LATAM economies not that long ago - a place that anyone would like to live in.

LOL.. this is the last thing Biden need to do now.. Already the US federal debt is nearing $30 trillion mark. And out of that $10-$15 trillion was contributed by invasions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya.etc. Another invasion will just sink the American economy, as it is already reeling from the COVID 19 pandemic. I don't expect Biden to approve any such military intervention. He will stick with sanctions and embargoes. But there are rumors that Kamala will replace him sometime soon. She is more radical when compared to Biden, and I won't be surprised if she actually approves an external military intervention.

So like I said earlier it doesn't have anything to do with the regime. There is something else.


I know there are decent people in Venezuela just like there are decent people in other countries. The problem is their number isn't enough. When the majority are turds, this is what you get.

Well.. this the sad reality. There are decent people in Venezuela, but most of them are in the process of migrating to other countries, or have already taken that step. For them, no hope remains in Venezuela. The regime has entered in to an agreement with the opposition, but I don't expect any big changes to the economic situation. If Venezuela remains in such dire straits even with crude oil prices of >$70 per barrel, then I don't think that they will ever make an economic recovery. For the near future, I can't foresee crude prices going up beyond this level.

Agree with what you said because the US has enough on their plate already and don't they need to add more. But, let me get this straight. Are you Kamala to replace Biden as the President?
What I read is that lawmakers wrote a letter to Biden to let Kamala take the role of controlling the illegal immigration at the southern border.

I feel really bad for the people who are living in Venezuela, but Capitalism cannot thrive.. if they cannot show that their system is better. The  capitalists brag about it's success, but it's success is built on a stack of cards called debt. It is only through tax bailouts and the clever manipulation of those economies that they portrait a smoke screen of wealth.

The sad fact is that the majority of capitalists are a small number of people compared to the rest of the population. There are a huge gap between the rich and the middle class and the poor people in these economies. (The Covid epidemic showed the cracks in this debt driven capitalist economies, with a lot of these people losing their businesses within a month of lockdowns)

Biden doesn't look fit to be the president of the United States. I don't believe that he has dementia, as the GOP House members would like to argue, but he is not looking to be in good state. So it is just a matter of time before Kamala replaces him as the POTUS. Actually it is like killing two birds with one stone. Kamala is so radical and she is almost unelectable. So it will be good for her if she becomes the POTUS without an election. And hopefully in the next two years, she can create a moderate image for herself and that may enable her to edge past the GOP candidate in 2024 (Ron DeSantis?).

A comfortable position for your opponents :)
By the way, I noticed that many supporters of utopian concepts, that if something goes wrong with them, according to their plans, the guilty one is immediately found. As a result, the picture they have is "it was not me who shit in my pants, it was someone else who shit in my pants ..." :)
Before realizing that the socialist fantasy vanished into thin air, the same countries were the "rotting west", and then so oops - someone shit in these dreamers' pants, broke their socialism and built it, quickly, in New Zealand, Sweden and other countries! They are funny! :)

I live in India, and you can find youngsters supporting Communist party in every nook and corner. They can be recognized instantly. Will be high on weed most of the time and will be wearing red headbands and Che-Guevara t-shirts. They believe that it is cool to insult the army and shout anti-national slogans. Previously this disease was limited to some of the smaller states such as Kerala and West Bengal, but now it has spread to the larger states as well. And the funny thing is that India has never witnessed communist rule. The CPI never managed to get more than 5% of the total seats in parliament at any time after the independence.

From my observations, the "breeding" environment for communism-socialism is, as a rule, a lumpenized environment, or people with an unformed worldview or lack of quality knowledge. It sounds like a shame, but the fact is that in a society that belongs to the middle class (we do not take into account those who are bought or interested), supporters of communism / socialism are at the level of statistical error. But the lower "to the bottom" of life - the more there are supporters of communist or socialist ideas! And there the idea of ​​"take away and divide" is the main idea in their life!
I strongly advise you to watch the film "Heart of a Dog", based on the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov - it perfectly shows the picture of how such a lumpen proletariat comes to power in Russia ... The film is simply amazing, I am sure it is with an English translation and you will enjoy watching it!
PS Generally I recommend reading the works of Bulgakov !

Lol! It seems to me that the same thing is happening around the world.


No, actually I didn't say it was only exclusive to communist countries, but if you look at where hyperinflation has occurred, it is not usually in countries that practice strict austerity in public spending and have a small state. On the contrary, they are states that spend and spend and spend. Italy would be an example. Before joining the euro, it also removed 0s, and it was not strictly communist but it had a state and a much larger state public expenditure than Germany, for example.

I'm going to leave the thread open a bit longer and I will lock it, because it is already drifting into discussion about communism in general. If someone wants to, they can open another one.

The sad thing is that some people are serious about supporting communism not knowing the horrors that the communism brings, I think a lot of people should learn about Stalin and the cannibal island, Pol Pot's Regime that's still killing people to this day.

I don't know the character you see in him that makes you believe he's (Biden) not fit to be the President of the United States but no one is fit to be US president than someone that study law in school.
Regarding dementia, we can rely on Trump's statement about Biden having dementia because he's not happy in the first place that he lost the election to him.

Tomorrow is not promised and we can't make conclusions here when our opinions don't count.

Yeah.. there is no guarantee. Kamala as the POTUS is risky for the Dems. Right now they don't want to alienate the moderate vote. Kamala will charge up the left-wing, but she'll swing the suburban voters towards the GOP. I guess the Dems have already learnt their lesson from 2016 and will be more careful before thinking about such a step. But then, someone needs to replace Biden in the next few years. I am not sure whether he can cling on till 2024. He is not in the best of his health, and is not as active as others would like him to be.

Well, as I said before, and as I see the conversation is already drifting to Biden Kamala etc. I proceed to lock the thread. Thanks for your opinions.