End of Socialist Paradise In Venezuela?

[Chef Ramsay]

More than 24,000 murders were recorded in Venezuela last year. This year, Caracas alone is averaging 35 murders a day. Many locals choose simply not to go out after dark. Crews billeted in Caracas with American air carriers are ordered to stay in their hotels, no exceptions. Billboards throughout town go dark at night, because the power grid is crumbling. The shortages started to get serious in December as collapsing oil prices proved the final straw for a wildly mismanaged economy.

Oil accounts for 95 per cent of export earnings. In the years since Mr Chavez came to power, oil output has dropped 25 per cent and huge quantities are essentially given away, to neighbours to curry favour or to Venezuelans for whom petrol is roughly one penny a gallon – or basically free. Items that today are almost impossible to find in the capital include milk, baby milk, nappies, deodorant, soap and shampoo. So too are many medicines. Also absent from the shelves are condoms, bringing the threat of increased HIV rates and unwanted pregnancies from unprotected sex. Queues form outside supermarkets before dawn and purchases are being rationed by the government. Military police patrol checkouts to quell fights.

“It’s horrible, horrible,” lamented Lina Lorusso, 77, in the aisles of a San Lorenzo supermarket in the Chacao district of Caracas, jealously clasping a bag of beans and two cans of peas. It’s the third supermarket she had tried that day. “I have watched people hitting each other and shouting. If you find anything it’s three times more expensive than it used to be.” Ms Lorusso arrived in Venezuela 57 years ago from Bari in southern Italy. Now she is watching as her grandchildren go back to Italy. “The situation here is like it was when I left,” she explains, her lower lip trembling. “Please help us.”

“It’s like a post-war economy with hyper inflation, shortages, fixed prices and the country’s capacity to produce goods destroyed,” Amabilis Castillo, 27, a treasury products analyst for an international bank, explained. A possible default by Venezuela on its ever-expanding debt is also looming.

President Maduro, according to the most recent polls, has seen his support fall to a perilous 22 per cent. When he took to the airwaves a week ago to trumpet foiling one more conspiracy to topple him most observers rolled their eyes, including the US which dismissed as “ludricous” any notion it had played a part. Since becoming President, he has spoken of more than a dozen purported such plots. But this time he said an ex-general had been arrested and 10 other officers implicated. If the added flourish that jets were to bomb the palace was fantasy, his fears of a military mutiny may have had more foundation. Within hours Venezuela’s high command was on television reiterating its loyalty to the President.

More...http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/corruption-falling-oil-prices-and-talk-of-a-coup-the-end-of-chavezs-socialist-dream-in-venezuela-10060576.html

Political opponents are being arrested without warrants. Inflation running 60%. Even basic goods hard to find. They just devalued their currency 69%. Authorization was given to arrest any protesters without any charges. Rampant corruption. Support for President Maduro down to 22% (who barely won the last election against government picked candidates). He had been relying on oil for 95% of revenues to support programs but the collapse of the price of oil severly cut their income. 24,000 murders last year (there were 14,000 in the US which has eleven times as many people).

[Wilikon]

This socialist train wreck was announced a long time ago by a dude around here... He was no prophet though. People keep doing the same mistake hoping for a different outcome.. The definition of madness...

[Lethn]

When a government ignores basic mathematics, it is like ignoring the laws of physics, this is the kind of results from that way of thinking, I believe Ecuador is similar in terms of political leanings and is having the same thigns happen over there and now a left leaning party has taken over Greece I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened to those guys too.

[bcoinbilly]

Oh how bitcoin can change all this. Just keep the ones in power rich and tell them to take a hike and completely overhaul the government with a bitcoin base and clean up the entire country no matter how long it takes.

[saddampbuh]

this is what they cant for trying to build a socialist paradise within a multi party system that tolerates dissent from right wing pro american groups actively seeking to thwart the socialist revolution and construction. better a rightly guided one party system that exterminates or imprisons the troublemakers.

[Wilikon]

this is what they cant for trying to build a socialist paradise within a multi party system that tolerates dissent from right wing pro american groups actively seeking to thwart the socialist revolution and construction. better a rightly guided one party system that exterminates or imprisons the troublemakers.

As long as YOU are the one doing the extermination and the imprisonment I am guessing?


 

[saddampbuh]

As long as YOU are the one doing the extermination and the imprisonment I am guessing?


 

why should the majority should sit idly by in poverty while a minority elite exploits them? if oppressing that minority betters the lives of everyone else, and history shows us it usually does, i see no wrong in it

[cellard]

When a government ignores basic mathematics, it is like ignoring the laws of physics, this is the kind of results from that way of thinking, I believe Ecuador is similar in terms of political leanings and is having the same thigns happen over there and now a left leaning party has taken over Greece I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened to those guys too.

Greece is already on the same track. I doubt Spain will follow tho, it's a part of EUR way too powerful to be kicked out like they are doing with the Greeks.

[Lethn]

When a government ignores basic mathematics, it is like ignoring the laws of physics, this is the kind of results from that way of thinking, I believe Ecuador is similar in terms of political leanings and is having the same thigns happen over there and now a left leaning party has taken over Greece I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened to those guys too.

Greece is already on the same track. I doubt Spain will follow tho, it's a part of EUR way too powerful to be kicked out like they are doing with the Greeks.

Don't forget that Spain has had Anarchism before too

[girb16]

Once Greece leaves the Euro-zone, then you will see Greece have some real power!

[Wilikon]

debt

Once Greece leaves the Euro-zone, then you will see Greece have some real power!

How? By cornering the global sculpture market?

Even the chinese are doing that better and cheaper and faster. And on top of that the chinese have greece by the balls already.
The only way to see that country becoming powerful is to have everyone else becoming more in debts than greece.

[bryant.coleman]

Everything was going well under Chavez. Unfortunately, Maduro turned out to be incompetent. They had the option of using the oil revenue to diversify their economy. Instead, the government wasted all that money in handouts and subsidies. Had they invested a part of that in education and industrialization, things would have been vastly different now.

[Mike Christ]

Everything was going well under Chavez. Unfortunately, Maduro turned out to be incompetent. They had the option of using the oil revenue to diversify their economy. Instead, the government wasted all that money in handouts and subsidies. Had they invested a part of that in education and industrialization, things would have been vastly different now.

To pin this on a single man or organization minimizes the true problem here, that being their culture, the people themselves; they bred and raised and handed power to the men in charge of all this.  This is what the Venezuelans wanted: freedom from work and responsibility, the easy way out.  They reap what they sow.  Greece is no different, they follow the exact same footsteps; instead of honing up to their bad behavior and taking responsibility for their poor actions (e.g. borrowing with no intent of paying back), they continue to take the easy way out, and it's steadily eroding their nation.  To say, "Well, if only they had elected someone else," or, "If only the elected people had done things differently," is a red herring; the people will give power to only exactly their own reflection, always; a government will never shape its people positively, it is not a father of the people, it will only shape the public in whatever way keeps it in power; a parent will stop you from eating so many sweets because they don't want you to get diabetes, but a government will let you to eat as many sweets as you want so long as you keep voting for them, heck they'll even spend taxpayer money so you can have all the sweets you want, just keep them in power.  This is true in every nation in the world, it's just, some cultures succumb to these sweets easier than others.

The current Venezuelan manifestation is going the way of the dodo, and good riddance; they should adopt a better way of life, but if they're anything like the Greeks I've seen online, they'll be too hard-headed to do anything about it.  It works out either way: either they change or they die; we are witnessing evolution at work even in systems of human interaction.