Venezuela 2017

[Aboim]

In fact about 90% of all politicians in the national congress, including the vice president who created an impeachment against the socialist Dilma Roussef is being investigated, are literally bandits cheating bandits and dumb people rather than unite, they are arguing who stole less, BRAZIL LITERALLY SPOILED, I CAN NOT AGREE MORE

Three groups in last elections, and only two has been prosecuted. The investigators conducted inquiries about political parties and corporations, and less than half of Brazilian Congress were held criminally responsible. Moreover, the local Chamber did reject the corruption amnesty law. The Brazilian situation is terrible, but why 90%?

http://m.congressoemfoco.uol.com.br/noticias/exclusivo-antes-mesmo-da-lista-de-janot-um-em-cada-tres-deputados-e-acusado-de-crimes-no-stf/
http://exame.abril.com.br/brasil/lista- ... estigados/
http://g1.globo.com/bom-dia-brasil/noti ... opina.html

I'm not a Brazilian, but isn't he fairly popular despite all that?

Yeah, because he created a keynesian bubble so from 2006 to 2010 (his 2nd term) everything was walking alrighty. Then came Dilma, which enjoyed 2011 hype but started to suffer in 2012. Now that we've got someone who's trying to fix the country Lula comes back. *sigh*

Lula da Silva didn’t implement new keynesian economics. During the dictatorship, the policy was similar. Brazilian dictatorship also made a big social programme creating, for example, the rural retirement pension, free of charge to retired, the worst public debt until these days in Brazil. Large subsidies already existed at that time. In addition, the military dictatorship paid household employees into the home of public servents, and the retirement pension of officials passed to sons.

Perhaps this is why Mr. Lula da Silva has praised the local dictatorship.

http://www.diariodepernambuco.com.br/app/noticia/economia/2016/01/15/internas_economia,621666/aposentadorias-a-trabalhadores-rurais-agravam-rombo-da-previdencia.shtml
https://www.lume.ufrgs.br/bitstream/han ... sequence=2
https://mordomias.wordpress.com/a-denuncia-da-mordomia/
https://noticias.uol.com.br/politica/ul ... ilitar.htm
https://oglobo.globo.com/economia/os-ec ... a-11959279
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2PFwMtX1kw

[Greater Miami Shores]

Looks like Venezuela needs some American freedom, maybe after that, Cuba could need an American intervention. Then the whole continent would be free from the socialist rats.

Yo, Troll, you want fries with that?.

He is not a troll. He is posting his views his way. His right to do so.

[Nakena]

Looks like Venezuela needs some American freedom, maybe after that, Cuba could need an American intervention. Then the whole continent would be free from the socialist rats.

Yo, Troll, you want fries with that?.

Freedom Fries for Venezuela!

[Great Minarchistan]

Lula da Silva didn’t implement new keynesian economics. During the dictatorship, the policy was similar.

...And the military government was keynesian too. Hard to understand? Well, then printing one trillion dollars, low interest rate bonanza and increasing government spending by 200% might teach you something.

P.S.: I did include data from 2006 to 2016 because Dilma followed the same recipe Lula did in his 2nd term.

Brazilian dictatorship also made a big social programme creating, for example, the rural retirement pension, free of charge to retired, the worst public debt until these days in Brazil.

> Military government followed a keynesian recipe
> Lula's policies were similar
> Lula didn't implement neokeynesianism

Teach me pls.

Large subsidies already existed at that time. In addition, the military dictatorship paid household employees into the home of public servents, and the retirement pension of officials passed to sons.

Your point is? Lula and Dilma still followed keynesianism.

[Erutenia]

Yo, Troll, you want fries with that?.

He is not a troll. He is posting his views his way. His right to do so.

...kay

*Anti-conservative views into DEFCON 2*common sense is ded

[Aboim]

Lula didn't implement

Lula da Silva didn’t implement new

New.

Teach me pls.

NEW

Definition of new

1 having recently come into existence
2 different from one of the same category that has existed previously

Examples of new in a Sentence

Lula da Silva didn’t create a new policy, because Brazil had already implemented that.

Your point is?

If the bubble was present before Lula, he couldn’t create it. But he indeed increased the bubble. Apparently, the Social Democrats and the impeached guy, Collor de Melo, tried to interrupt the rising expenditure, to control the size of state, and to open the economy, during the 1990’s. Unluckily, the populism, nationalism, and protectionism returned with Lula da Silva, and in particular with Dilma Rousseff.

[Great Minarchistan]

Lula didn't implement

Lula da Silva didn’t implement new

New.

Teach me pls.

NEW

Definition of new

1 having recently come into existence
2 different from one of the same category that has existed previously

Examples of new in a Sentence

Lula da Silva didn’t create a new policy, because Brazil had already implemented that.

He still implemented keynesian economics during his term, which created a bubble.

If the bubble was present before Lula, he couldn’t create it.

There was no bubble before haha.

Apparently, the Social Democrats and the impeached guy, Collor de Melo, tried to interrupt the rising expenditure, to control the size of state, and to open the economy, during the 1990’s. Unluckily, the populism, nationalism, and protectionism returned with Lula da Silva, and in particular with Dilma Rousseff.

That's why he created the bubble. Everything was walking alright until 2006 (in fact, the economic team under Lula I was Neoliberal with a major N) when he appointed a keynesian minister of economy and things started to derail.

[Greed and Death]

Yo, Troll, you want fries with that?.

Freedom Fries for Venezuela!

throw some fries on the ground in Venezuela and you can watch people knife fight over them for free.

[Herskerstad]

160.000 Protesters in the capital. Seesh. This is only growing.

[Senkaku]

The poll still doesn't include "step the fuck down"? 0/10, I'm disappointed

[Greater Miami Shores]

I have not been really paying attention to our neighbor to our South. But lately, they have been printing in newspapers and showing on tv the latest street protests against the government of Maduro. Also, they have showed Maduros supporters having rallies in support of the government. So I decided to catch up on news on Venezuela. In March, the Ven. Supreme Court dissolved the Ven. Congress which has been controlled by the opposition since early 2016. So Maduro now has most of the power. This explains why the supporters of the opposition are protesting in the streets since the balance of power has tilted toward the Pres..

Going back, before the oil price collapse, Ven. was chugging along with its social programs which were effective when it came to the have nots. They are still giving people who cannot afford a new home, free homes. However, with oil down, the government cannot continue to afford these gran social projects. When it comes to imports. Ven. relies on imports for many things. But there monetary mess, devaluation and running out of money means they cannot afford to import most basic items.

Found an article from Colombian writer Mauricio Cabrera Galvis. He seems to have hit it on the nose what is Ven. main problem. He says its economical. That without solutions to the economy that the political problems cannot be solved. He points out that in Ven. neithier the government or the opposition which controlled the congress ever came up with a plan to deal with the economy which explains why the congress got forcibly dissolved by the supreme court. The writer concludes that neithier Maduro, the dissolved Congress or the 28 opposition political parties (which agree on tossing Maduro out) want to declare any austerity plan since it will mean instant political destruction.

So I think he is right. None of the political parties including the government wants to touch this hot potato which would mean angry voters getting really angry because of tough austerity plans. In the meantime, there foreign reserves keep going down and down. So what do you think NS.

This will take you to Mauricio Cabrera Galvis article but its in Spanish - http://www.portafolio.co/opinion/mauric ... 017-504885

From the Right Wing Miami Herald:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation- ... 84839.html

From Cuba's Prensa Latina, Fair and Balanced News:

http://plenglish.com/index.php?o=rn&id= ... ecember-10

Venezuelans march to support Constitutional Process

http://plenglish.com/index.php?o=rn&id= ... al-process

I still don't trust these words, for fair multi political party elections, and a new constitutional assembly:

"by the Constitution and the Bolivarian Revolution" " to try to kneel a town and thereby destroy the Bolivarian Revolution,"

If Maduro and the democratic socialist government of Venezuela falls from power. The democratic socialist government of Cuba that supports it, is not going to be happy.

[Minoa]

Very poignant: http://time.com/venezuela-photographers/

This is just a catastrophic crisis that has overtaken the magnitude of the 2014 protests.

[The Grene Knyght]

TBH there's so much propaganda emerging from the left and right that its extraordinarily hard to have even a reasonably objective view on the state of things in Venezuela.

[Washington Resistance Army]

TBH there's so much propaganda emerging from the left and right that its hard to have a reasonably objective view on the state of things in Venezuela.

It's awful, that's the objective state of things.

[The Grene Knyght]

TBH there's so much propaganda emerging from the left and right that its hard to have a reasonably objective view on the state of things in Venezuela.

It's awful, that's the objective state of things.

But i mean, you have some people saying things like the protesters are paid by the US to sow discontent, and you have others saying the entire Venezuelan economy is controlled by a single middle aged home depot employee from alabama.

[Greater Miami Shores]

I have not been really paying attention to our neighbor to our South. But lately, they have been printing in newspapers and showing on tv the latest street protests against the government of Maduro. Also, they have showed Maduros supporters having rallies in support of the government. So I decided to catch up on news on Venezuela. In March, the Ven. Supreme Court dissolved the Ven. Congress which has been controlled by the opposition since early 2016. So Maduro now has most of the power. This explains why the supporters of the opposition are protesting in the streets since the balance of power has tilted toward the Pres..

Going back, before the oil price collapse, Ven. was chugging along with its social programs which were effective when it came to the have nots. They are still giving people who cannot afford a new home, free homes. However, with oil down, the government cannot continue to afford these gran social projects. When it comes to imports. Ven. relies on imports for many things. But there monetary mess, devaluation and running out of money means they cannot afford to import most basic items.

Found an article from Colombian writer Mauricio Cabrera Galvis. He seems to have hit it on the nose what is Ven. main problem. He says its economical. That without solutions to the economy that the political problems cannot be solved. He points out that in Ven. neithier the government or the opposition which controlled the congress ever came up with a plan to deal with the economy which explains why the congress got forcibly dissolved by the supreme court. The writer concludes that neithier Maduro, the dissolved Congress or the 28 opposition political parties (which agree on tossing Maduro out) want to declare any austerity plan since it will mean instant political destruction.

So I think he is right. None of the political parties including the government wants to touch this hot potato which would mean angry voters getting really angry because of tough austerity plans. In the meantime, there foreign reserves keep going down and down. So what do you think NS.

This will take you to Mauricio Cabrera Galvis article but its in Spanish - http://www.portafolio.co/opinion/mauric ... 017-504885

Venezuela's people are going hungry — but it's keeping its lenders happy

Fred Imbert
CNBCMay 26, 2017

Venezuela has been ravaged by severe food shortages, tremendous protests and a sky-high inflation rate, but it's avoided one problem: the country refuses to default on its debt.

The country's ability to keep making payments on its debt may be "in doubt," but its willingness is "strong," said Diego Moya-Ocampos, a senior analyst at IHS Markit. "The government is cutting imports of food and basic goods at the expense of social unrest to pay its debt."

The country's 20-year government
t bond pays 20.23 percent to lenders, according to Investing.com.

Why keep paying?
There are several reasons Venezuela hasn't defaulted. First, it would hurt a government that is already in trouble.
"A default would be a blow to the regime," said Jason Marczak, Latin American Economic Growth Initiative director, Atlantic Council. "A default could lead to Venezuela being closed out of international markets."
President Nicolas Maduro 's regime has been shaken by nationwide protests and dissent among a handful of high-profile officials. Video of the Venezuelan National Guard running over protesters with armored vehicles went viral earlier this month. Attorney General Luisa Ortega condemned the state's violence against protesters .

"Words can barely articulate the situation in Venezuela," Marczak said. "This is a country that has become deeply divided, deeply polarized."

The one industry that matters
Defaulting on its debts also would present more problems for Venezuela's biggest industry.
The country's economy is almost completely at the mercy of the oil industry — its economic and social tailspin nothwithstanding, Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves on earth. As of last year, they stood at the equivalent of 300 billion barrels — approximately 33 billion more than Saudi Arabia — according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
But its oil production has cratered to its lowest levels in about 20 years since a crash in prices that started in late 2014.
US crude since September 30, 2014 until now

Source: FactSet
Oil minister Nelson Martinez said Thursday that Venezuela is seeking alternatives to pay key lenders, namely China and Russia.
"We are looking forward to solving the issue of the debt," Martinez said at a meeting OPEC, of which Venezuela is a member. "We are looking at all options, some financial support through bonds, and so on."

Venezuela has struck oil-for-loans deals with China and Russia , and those countries together have lent Venezuela at least $50 billion in exchange for promised oil and fuel deliveries.

But Petroleos de Venezuela, the state-run oil company better known as PDVSA, could default on its debt either this fall — when it's scheduled to pay more than $3 billion in debt — or "in the coming years," said Reggie Thompson, Latin America analyst at Stratfor.
"It's risky for PDVSA because, even though they made a similar payment earlier this year, their cash flow problems keep worsening by the day," Thompson said. "They also have other headwinds, like mechanical failures."

Thompson added that Venezuela's unwillingness to default also stems from a desire to preserve its own assets.

"They'd have to deal with lengthy lawsuits against bondholders that could end with [the government] having some assets seized."
Lastly, Venezuela won't default on its debt because "many high-ranking government officials and their associates are bondholders," said Moya-Ocampos of IHS, who noted it's "not too common" for high-ranking officials to own their country's debt.
—Reuters contributed to

cUnder state pressure, Venezuela TV limits live coverage of protests

Harvard's Hausmann on Venezuela's Political Climate

[Rio Cana]

Like I have said before, Ven. has tended to be a mess since the years of Independence. The best leader they had was the following (read below). Someone like him today could most likely turn things around. But to find a politician like him in todays Ven. is close to impossible.

Read - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rómulo_Betancourt]

[The Archregimancy]

Like I have said before, Ven. has tended to be a mess since the years of Independence.

This is regrettably true.

Venezuela's two main periods of stability were under the gomecista dictatorship of 1908-35, and between the election of Betancourt in 1958 and the Caracazo of 1989; but only the second of those was a period of stable democracy. With the exception of the latter 30-year period of democracy, Venezuela's history has largely been one of dictatorship, military government, coup, and countercoup.

And it's not a history that's particularly well known. For example, I doubt many people reading this thread who aren't South American or from the Caribbean will know of the 1859-63 Federal War (Guerra Federal), a five-year civil war that led to the deaths of up to 200,000 people (primarily from hunger and disease rather than actual open warfare) in a country that at the time had a population of c.one million. So up to a fifth of the population died in a period of only five years; which rather puts Maduro, for all his faults, in some Venezuelan historical perspective.

The point is, while oil wealth led directly to both the gomecista and the subsequent brief flowering of liberal democracy, those two periods of stability were very much the exception rather than the rule. For the overwhelming majority of the period from the initial declaration of independence from 1811 (acknowledging that final separation from Gran Colombia only occurred in 1830) to the present, Venezuela has been a deeply unstable country.

It's a beautiful country with wonderful people, but its history doesn't set an encouraging precedent for a peaceful resolution to the present crisis. The habit of both the left and the right to use Venezuelan politics as an ideological punching bag isn't really helping either.

[Senkaku]

It's awful, that's the objective state of things.

But i mean, you have some people saying things like the protesters are paid by the US to sow discontent,

Seems unlikely, given that there are hundreds of thousands of them and that Venezuela descending into anarchy isn't really ideal for US interests.

and you have others saying the entire Venezuelan economy is controlled by a single middle aged home depot employee from alabama.

I don't the the Venezuelan economy is controlled by anyone at this point, unfortunately.

[Rintamamiestalo]

Anymore, I've gotten really irritated with the socialists I see on my Facebook defending Venezuela. I liked certain things about Chavez and his style of government, prior to the completely moronic leadership of Maduro. I think some of the other Latin American Left leaders like Morales have done a decent job running their own countries. But, oil dependence, corruption, a lack of foresight, a lack of appreciation for the polarization of the country, among other things, have led to Venezuela becoming a trashcan fire. I think it really shows the limits to populism, the limits to resource-based economics, and the perils of politics in deeply polarized, deeply unequal societies.

All that being said, I tend to think the U.S. backed opposition is garbage, but that doesn't make a lot of the Chavista elite any better.

[Great Minarchistan]

I don't the the Venezuelan economy is controlled by anyone at this point, unfortunately.

a n a r c h y

[Rintamamiestalo]

But i mean, you have some people saying things like the protesters are paid by the US to sow discontent,

Seems unlikely, given that there are hundreds of thousands of them and that Venezuela descending into anarchy isn't really ideal for US interests.

and you have others saying the entire Venezuelan economy is controlled by a single middle aged home depot employee from alabama.

I don't the the Venezuelan economy is controlled by anyone at this point, unfortunately.

The U.S. didn't have a problem with supporting coup plotters back in 2001. I'm not so sure, if the U.S. looks at how desperate the situation is there, as well as how unpopular Maduro is, that many within the government here would be willing to lend assistance to destabilization tactics. The opposition (well, its furthest right-wing) has been encouraging foquista-style guerilla stuff for years. Like during the years that the Venezuelan economy was growing and Chavez had an overwhelming mandate from the people to govern.

[The Grene Knyght]

But i mean, you have some people saying things like the protesters are paid by the US to sow discontent,

Seems unlikely, given that there are hundreds of thousands of them and that Venezuela descending into anarchy isn't really ideal for US interests.

and you have others saying the entire Venezuelan economy is controlled by a single middle aged home depot employee from alabama.

I don't the the Venezuelan economy is controlled by anyone at this point, unfortunately.

Thanks for explaining my point. Not sure it was necessary but ya never know.

Seems unlikely, given that there are hundreds of thousands of them and that Venezuela descending into anarchy isn't really ideal for US interests.


I don't the the Venezuelan economy is controlled by anyone at this point, unfortunately.

The U.S. didn't have a problem with supporting coup plotters back in 2001. I'm not so sure, if the U.S. looks at how desperate the situation is there, as well as how unpopular Maduro is, that many within the government here would be willing to lend assistance to destabilization tactics. The opposition (well, its furthest right-wing) has been encouraging foquista-style guerilla stuff for years. Like during the years that the Venezuelan economy was growing and Chavez had an overwhelming mandate from the people to govern.

the us are pretty open about supporting opposition to the Venezuelan government. I doubt they sending individual pay checks to each and every protestor the way we on the left get ours bimonthly from George Soros, but they have stated in their annual budget reports that they are putting about 5 or 6 million a year into funding opposition groups

[Rintamamiestalo]

Seems unlikely, given that there are hundreds of thousands of them and that Venezuela descending into anarchy isn't really ideal for US interests.


I don't the the Venezuelan economy is controlled by anyone at this point, unfortunately.

Thanks for explaining my point. Not sure it was necessary but ya never know.

The U.S. didn't have a problem with supporting coup plotters back in 2001. I'm not so sure, if the U.S. looks at how desperate the situation is there, as well as how unpopular Maduro is, that many within the government here would be willing to lend assistance to destabilization tactics. The opposition (well, its furthest right-wing) has been encouraging foquista-style guerilla stuff for years. Like during the years that the Venezuelan economy was growing and Chavez had an overwhelming mandate from the people to govern.

the us are pretty open about supporting opposition to the Venezuelan government. I doubt they sending individual pay checks to each and every protestor the way we on the left get ours bimonthly from George Soros, but they have stated in their annual budget reports that they are putting about 5 or 6 million a year into funding opposition groups

Oh definitely. The U.S. has always supported the Venezuelan opposition. The nation is one of the world's largest oil producers. This is why the U.S. wants Venezuela and its leadership to be solidly tethered to us. It's got little, if anything, to do with concern for the state of Venezuelan democracy. If the American government had cared about Venezuelan democracy, they wouldn't have lent support to Carmona and the business elites when they tried to overthrow Chávez.

It really was counterproductive for the U.S. to lend support to that. U.S. support for the coup attempt definitely fed into the nationalist paranoia that Chavismo has become. On that front, the blame can be squarely laid at the feet of U.S. foreign policy.

[Greed and Death]

TBH there's so much propaganda emerging from the left and right that its extraordinarily hard to have even a reasonably objective view on the state of things in Venezuela.

For the most part they all agree it is crap in Venezuela, the propaganda is just affixing blame (US, vs Chavez and Maduro).