Chavez's promises

CaterinaA

farfromglorified wrote:

Sigh....definitely see what you're saying here and it's sad. Thanks so much for the perspective.

The situation there seems to be deteriorating more quickly than I expected based on the reading I did this afternoon. It's only a matter of time (if it hasn't already started) that the pull peddlers start trading in lives rather than just soon-to-be-worthless bolivars. The public is really doomed if the price of oil gets much lower....

How easy is it for people to get out of Venezuela?

You're welcome and sorry for the grammar I wrote the post in quite a hurry.

Yes, there is a tense calm in Venezuela, we'll have to wait and see what happens if expropriations take place on a massive scale. Right now there's a lot of scarcity 'cause food producers are refusing to obey market prices proposed by the government. As long as the oil continues on the rise Chavez, sadly, will be fine, waisting money like crazy.

Right now there are no actual restrictions to leave Venezuela. If you have cash (US dollars or Euros) and an effective passport, you're free to leave the country. The thing is there are extremely tight monetary controls. You can buy a maximum of USD3,000 par year, you can't withdraw all your money from the bank, the real estate market is virtually paralized, an top of that if your passport has expired, chances are it will take almost a year to get a new one (I have to say that this is not Chavez fault, ID cards, drivers licences and passports have always been a drama). In brief, if you can afford it you can leave. Favorite destinations are USA and Spain, an lately Chile has become a popular destination among Venezuelans.

farfromglorified

CaterinaA wrote:

You're welcome and sorry for the grammar I wrote the post in quite a hurry.

No problem.

Yes, there is a tense calm in Venezuela, we'll have to wait and see what happens if expropriations take place on a massive scale. Right now there's a lot of scarcity 'cause food producers are refusing to obey market prices proposed by the government. As long as the oil continues on the rise Chavez, sadly, will be fine, waisting money like crazy.

How are the food produced supposed to obey those prices? It sounds like it's nearly impossible in Venezuela now to produce anything without losing money. One of the articles on that site mentioned that transportation costs have risen something like 80% in the last couple of years. How can you obey an imposed price that will effectively be a death sentence? Are there any talks in Venezuela about halting price controls?

Right now there are no actual restrictions to leave Venezuela. If you have cash (US dollars or Euros) and an effective passport, you're free to leave the country. The thing is there are extremely tight monetary controls. You can buy a maximum of USD3,000 par year, you can't withdraw all your money from the bank, the real estate market is virtually paralized, an top of that if your passport has expired, chances are it will take almost a year to get a new one (I have to say that this is not Chavez fault, ID cards, drivers licences and passports have always been a drama). In brief, if you can afford it you can leave. Favorite destinations are USA and Spain, an lately Chile has become a popular destination among Venezuelans.

Yikes. I'm certainly glad to hear that those who are able to leave still can. But I suspect there are going to be a lot of people who end up stranded in what may very well end up being an economic desert.

MakingWaves

CaterinaA wrote:

First of all, Chavez authority will not expire after 18 month, he was elected for a 6 year term. The 18 months are a whole different story. See, the National Assembly (which has 0 members from the opposition) gave Chavez absolute power to govern by decree for 18months. Hence, he will be able to expropriate or to order expropriations, basically he will be able to do whatever he wants. Had the national assembly had the will to really hold him accountable would the had given him such powerws? I mean they are his sheep, they just clap every time he opens his mouth... Chavez obeys the law? Just wondering, how are you so sure about that?

The Boliviarian constitution was tailor made by Chavez and the Supreme Court integrated (guess what!) only by Chavez supporters.

He has no power to harm civil or human rights nor would he wish to as a social democrat believing in them for everyone, even for his opponents.

Yeah, go tell that the 150,000 venezuelans that have been forced to leave the country and to Patricia Poleo (journalista), to Carlos Ortega (former president of Venezuela's most important workers-union) or to Danilo Anderson (pro-Chavez judge assasinated to blame the opposition) or to every single journalist that tried to investigate the Anderson affair. Oh, last but not least, the thousands of workers of the TV channel (RCTV)...

About other countries, well just more purple prose. He funded the campaings of: Ollanta Humala, Evo Morales, Daniel Ortega and Rafael Correa. Before the ballotage (2nd round) took place in Peru Chavez stated he would break diplomatic relations with Peru if Humala did not win. Humala lost, so he refused to acknowledge Garcia's legitimacy and diplomatic relations are deteriorating by the day. He's donating money to Bolivia so they can build over 30 military bases in Bolivia's border with Chile. That's very helpful considering Michelle Bachelet's government is actually trying to improve her country's relations with Bolivia. What else? He called Josè Miguel Insulza (OAS) president and asshole in public TV, because Mr. Insulza (one of Latin America's most respected politicians, former chancellor of Ricardo Lagos) expressed his concerns for Venezuela's freedom of speech...

About infrastructure. Where to begin...oh, I know. The bridge that connected the city to the major international airport of Venezuela and to the most important seaports fell down (there is a Colorado Canyon now over there, I saw it) and remains fallen down. Couple of month ago the alternate road collapsed as well. The housing programme is non-existant, unless we can consider promoting looting a housing plan. Furthermore, the streets of Caracas are in its worst shape ever!!!

Corruption, well that's been a major issue in Venezuela. However Chavez has not improved the situation. Corruption just switched sides. For example, there is public accountability for at least half of the oil revenues. In the national budget making process the price of oil was put at 32 par barrel. So nobody knows what the government does with the extra profits. Although there are some guesses: money for his cause....

But yeah, he's a dream come true, the patron saint of the poor...

Very well said and I notice how the original poster of this thread is nowhere to be found after this post. Some people just amaze me.

Commy

MakingWaves wrote:

Very well said and I notice how the original poster of this thread is nowhere to be found after this post. Some people just amaze me.

maybe you were assuming i was defending chavez when i was simply supplying facts.

i amazed you...that's just really funny to me for some reason.

jlew24asu

Commy wrote:

maybe you were assuming i was defending chavez when i was simply supplying facts.

so help me understand for a second. you are not defending chavez?

Commy

jlew24asu wrote:

so help me understand for a second. you are not defending chavez?

I supported him at the beginning, simply for the reasons mentioned earlier. But it looks like he's doing what every other leader inevitably ends up doing, securing his position of power.

farfromglorified

Commy wrote:

I supported him at the beginning, simply for the reasons mentioned earlier. But it looks like he's doing what every other leader inevitably ends up doing, securing his position of power.

But if you let him keep going, he'll give you everything you want. Complete equality wherein zero gets divided equally by all.

Commy

farfromglorified wrote:

But if you let him keep going, he'll give you everything you want. Complete equality wherein zero gets divided equally by all.

the idea is actually sound...and Venezuela has enough natural resources to pull it off...an equal share of the resources to all. Unfortunately for everyone it looks like he's centralizing power, using the countries resources to secure that position of power and so on...

socialism is sound in theory.

farfromglorified

Commy wrote:

the idea is actually sound...and Venezuela has enough natural resources to pull it off...an equal share of the resources to all. Unfortunately for everyone it looks like he's centralizing power, using the countries resources to secure that position of power and so on...

socialism is sound in theory.

Commy, the idea isn't sound. A woman once told the story of what is happening right now in Venezuela. And she told it 50 years before it happened.

http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Shrugged-Ayn-Rand/dp/0451191145

Socialism is no more sound than ordering the unplanted seed to produce fruit. You can demand all you want, you can point all the guns you have at it, and you can pass all the laws you want. But it won't give you fruit.

jeffbr

What am I missing?

farfromglorified wrote:

Complete equality wherein zero gets divided equally by all.

Commy wrote:

the idea is actually sound

I didn't know that was possible.

Commy

jeffbr wrote:

What am I missing?




I didn't know that was possible.

you're not dividing from zero. I'm not sure where far got that idea. the idea is to limit the gov't as much as possible, libertarian in an extreme form, and then divide the resources of the areas among the people that actually live in the area. Instead of a small minority benefiting from the resources (aka capitalism). And really you could have a pretty good society, very little crime, no homeless, jobless, hungry...its very possible and I'm sorry to see it not working in Venezuela.

farfromglorified

Commy wrote:

you're not dividing from zero. I'm not sure where far got that idea.

I got that idea from Venezuela. Production continue to fall, shortages continue to rise.

the idea is to limit the gov't as much as possible, libertarian in an extreme form, and then divide the resources of the areas among the people that actually live in the area. Instead of a small minority benefiting from the resources (aka capitalism). And really you could have a pretty good society, very little crime, no homeless, jobless, hungry...its very possible and I'm sorry to see it not working in Venezuela.

Sigh...you are an idealist, I'll give you that.

You cannot divide the resources equally among people in a civilized society defined by unequal labor without institutional force. It simply cannot be done Commy.

Your desire for a bizarre combination of small government coupled with equal wealth distribution really only has one possible outcome: a society of hunter-gatherers with little to no technology or specialization. There it would be possible. Here, or in Venezuela, it is not.

gue_barium

farfromglorified wrote:

I got that idea from Venezuela. Production continue to fall, shortages continue to rise.



Sigh...you are an idealist, I'll give you that.

You cannot divide the resources equally among people in a civilized society defined by unequal labor without institutional force. It simply cannot be done Commy.

Your desire for a bizarre combination of small government coupled with equal wealth distribution really only has one possible outcome: a society of hunter-gatherers with little to no technology or specialization. There it would be possible. Here, or in Venezuela, it is not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji_G0MqAqq8

farfromglorified

gue_barium wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji_G0MqAqq8

I really dig Ron Paul. He's one of the few politicians anywhere that I'd vote for without qualms.

EDIT: This went too far as an endorsement. I'd have some qualms about voting for Ron Paul. But not a lot.

gue_barium

farfromglorified wrote:

I really dig Ron Paul. He's one of the few politicians anywhere that I'd vote for without qualms.

I didn't realize he was so well-schooled in economics. I was hoping you could infer his insight into your opinion of venezulea's economic agenda. I mean:

"You cannot divide the resources equally among people in a civilized society defined by unequal labor without institutional force. It simply cannot be done Commy.

Your desire for a bizarre combination of small government coupled with equal wealth distribution really only has one possible outcome: a society of hunter-gatherers with little to no technology or specialization. There it would be possible. Here, or in Venezuela, it is not."

..don't you think there's bigger wheels at play here? At least venezulea can back it's "dollars" with a viable commodity/resource.

farfromglorified

gue_barium wrote:

I didn't realize he was so well-schooled in economics. I was hoping you could infer his insight into your opinion of venezulea's economic agenda. I mean:

"You cannot divide the resources equally among people in a civilized society defined by unequal labor without institutional force. It simply cannot be done Commy.

Your desire for a bizarre combination of small government coupled with equal wealth distribution really only has one possible outcome: a society of hunter-gatherers with little to no technology or specialization. There it would be possible. Here, or in Venezuela, it is not."

..don't you think there's bigger wheels at play here? At least venezulea can back it's "dollars" with a viable commodity.

Yes, there are bigger wheels at play here. I guess I'm struggling, however, to understand what you're asking.

Venezuela's viable commodity is worthless while it's sitting in the ground or on the beach. And since their economic structure largely demands that it sit there, I don't think they'll have much luck.

gue_barium

farfromglorified wrote:

Yes, there are bigger wheels at play here. I guess I'm struggling, however, to understand what you're asking.

Venezuela's viable commodity is worthless while it's sitting in the ground or on the beach. And since their economic structure largely demands that it sit there, I don't think they'll have much luck.

Lol. You've got to be kidding me.

I won't argue economics with you, but you need to come up with something more substantial than these simplistic ascertations. That's why I lent you the Ron Paul link.

farfromglorified

gue_barium wrote:

Lol. You've got to be kidding me.

I won't argue economics with you, but you need to come up with something more substantial than these simplistic ascertations. That's why I lent you the Ron Paul link.

Hehe...are you asking me something or are you just critiquing my posts? If you, or others, want something more than assertations, you, or others, can go study economics. One of my posts or a ten minute youtube video isn't going to accomplish that. This is a message board, largely tailored for the posting of opinions. And since your post above is just a simplistic assertation, it fits right in.

gue_barium

farfromglorified wrote:

Hehe...are you asking me something or are you just critiquing my posts? If you, or others, want something more than assertations, you, or others, can go study economics. One of my posts or a ten minute youtube video isn't going to accomplish that. This is a message board, largely tailored for the posting of opinions. And since your post above is just a simplistic assertation, it fits right in.

Well, like my misspelling, your assertation ascertained nothing.

farfromglorified

gue_barium wrote:

your assertation ascertained nothing.

Thank you, Mr. Ombudsman.

Now, if you're looking for an explanation of this:

"Venezuela's viable commodity is worthless while it's sitting in the ground or on the beach. And since their economic structure largely demands that it sit there, I don't think they'll have much luck."

You can find it here:

http://www.bibliomania.com/2/1/65/112/frameset.html

Pay close attention to the first sentence in the book. But do read the rest.