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Venezuela on Brink of Hyperinflation

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Re: Venezuela on Brink of Hyperinflation

#71
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is literally producing more oil domestically than it can refine, it's got more cheap domestic oil than it knows what to do with... I don't discount American involvement but I'm not sure that oil is the great driving factor it may have been historically, the Americans are producing enough of their own.

The long term strategy of the US is to provide energy security to Europe between tar sands, crude, gas and oil. It has multilateral plans with Canada and Mexico to build North-South pipelines to achieve this. Recently the conflict over oil off the shore of Guyana and the documents I linked to above (where it is STATED that the coup is motivated by oil) show recent actions by the US that contradict you. And further it…

... and the current inept Venezuelan Government is making all it can to help US convey it's plans, apparently

Re: Venezuela on Brink of Hyperinflation

#72
post #62
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Sweden will have a particularly tough time in coming years. Why? Sweden is already in pretty bad shape due to immigration. But a large part of the govt, and dominant information channels are intent on concealing that fact as much as possible for some reason, hard for some people to admit they were wrong I guess. Shockingly enough, Sweden leads the world in rape and school arson. Informative report on the horrible rap…

I had heard of this when living in DK, but never thought it had gone so bad.

Re: Venezuela on Brink of Hyperinflation

#73
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human Freedom Index, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are in the top 10 freest countries on earth. I guess that metric is derived from formal, and institutional freedom or non-freedom promoting policies, but unfortunately, in some respects Sweden is looking increasingly out of place in such a high position on that list. Anybody who points out that the country's immigration policies are close to destroying the country face…

It is utterly terrifying (in Europe), the right is edging on fascism here(bible thumping, xenohobic, spiteful), the left is so high on "Political Correctness" (you literally cannot adress real problems because that is "homophobic", "patriarchic", "antisemitic", etc) What the hell is going on...

What problems do you anticipate being able to solve with homophobia, patriarchy and antisemitism?

Re: Venezuela on Brink of Hyperinflation

#74

The United States has been working on a coup for Maduro, since its coup of Chavez hasn't worked out for it. This time it would really like to install Leonardo Lopez as he's willing to privatize Venezuelan oil to US companies. The US has been encouraging and organizing protests, gatherings and projecting anti-Maduro sentiment and news into the country. ( https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releasedate/2012-06-18-08-canv...…

> If we take Venezuela we need to make sure that we don't isolate the rest of the continent.

So you don't see a problem with "you" "taking" Venezuela, as long as the consequences aren't too bad for "you"?

Nevermind that other countries are not supposed to be your colonies and nevermind that you, as in, ordinary citizens, won't even benefit from the US "taking" Venezuela.

Re: Venezuela on Brink of Hyperinflation

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seems to work just fine in scandinavia

According to the libertarian Cato Institute's Human Freedom Index, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are in the top 10 freest countries on earth. The US is at place 20 and Venezuela at 144 out of 152. http://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index http://www.cato.org/economic-freedom-world Scandinavia has very free market open economies coupled with extensive welfare states financed by high taxes. You can call that socialism if y…

> Scandinavia has very free market open economies coupled with extensive welfare states financed by high taxes.

That's a contradictory statement. High taxes represent a high level of intervention in the economy/market, which is the opposite of a free market.

It's not "working" in Scandinavia either, by the way.

There's a limit to how much you can intervene in your economy before it collapses. We're just not as far along the path as Venezuela.

Re: Venezuela on Brink of Hyperinflation

#76
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seems to work just fine in scandinavia

It always works until it doesn't. Sweden will have a particularly tough time in coming years.

Finland is probably worse off because their immigration policy is much more restrictive. I think some of the thinking goes that the immigration policy should mitigate the aging concerns. As for socialist policies, at least we get a hell of a lot for our the money here. In the US, it seems to just go down the drain in war spending and everything else the US gov touches is FUBAR; e.g. education, healthcare etc.

Re: Venezuela on Brink of Hyperinflation

#77
post #66
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always works until it doesn't. Sweden will have a particularly tough time in coming years.

Sweden will have a particularly tough time in coming years. That time is already here, let's hope a change of course can be made soon. Sweden's irresponsibility and malfeasance should really be of concern to the whole world, as in some ways the country has become like Afghanistan under Taliban rule, in the providing of a safe-haven for and cultivation of terrorists. (yes, that sounds crazy, and it is, but it is the c…

I think a lot of Swedes feel divided on this subject. The vast majority of for instance Syrians and Iraqis that are seeking refuge here are escaping essentially islamofascism. Beheadings, bombings, kidnappings, sectarian violence and what have you..

Put yourself in that situation for a second. I really resent Islam as a religion because its at odds with our culture and values, but I'm willing to let go of that resentment in the hopes of helping some of these people. And hopefully the 2nd or 3rd generation of these immigrants will be completely absorbed and integrated into Swedish way of life. If you escape that kind of situation, at the ending of the day, a normal person would feel some gratitude to the country that took them in.

Either way, this policy is a stark contrast with what the utopian US "freedom" policy has done for that region, but of course, it not without its rough edges.

Re: Venezuela on Brink of Hyperinflation

#78
post #68
post #4

How to create hyperinflation in two easy steps: 1. Build massive external debt in _foreigin_ currency. 2. Have fixed exchange rate. Its very hard to create hyperinflation using bad fiscal policy alone if you are not in debt in foreign currency and have floating exchange rates. Floating currency will balance exports and imports and printing money to pay debt in your own currency works.

(words from Venezuelan living in Venezuela) Actually, external debt in foreing currency is not an important factor in what's happenig. Even with the oil price collapse in the last 12 months, Venezuela current account balance is positive, and it's debt to GDP ratio is a lot more manageable that US or EU (although of course that depends on which exchange rate you calculate the GDP). The hyperinflation (which we are not…

Question for you - to what extent does the Venezuelan gov. interfere and control the means of production and distribution of everyday household products?

When I lived in Miami, we were fed incessant articles and anecdotes from Venezuelan emigrants about how the government meddled with the allocation of basic household goods.

Re: Venezuela on Brink of Hyperinflation

#79
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the libertarian Cato Institute's Human Freedom Index, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are in the top 10 freest countries on earth. The US is at place 20 and Venezuela at 144 out of 152. http://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index http://www.cato.org/economic-freedom-world Scandinavia has very free market open economies coupled with extensive welfare states financed by high taxes. You can call that socialism if y…

Human Freedom Index, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are in the top 10 freest countries on earth. I guess that metric is derived from formal, and institutional freedom or non-freedom promoting policies, but unfortunately, in some respects Sweden is looking increasingly out of place in such a high position on that list. Anybody who points out that the country's immigration policies are close to destroying the country face…

> there has been some recent talk of actual formalized anti-freedom measures

This is the kind of things that worry people in the top freest countries.

In the lower ranked countries there is far more than talk about such things going on.

Re: Venezuela on Brink of Hyperinflation

#80
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human Freedom Index, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are in the top 10 freest countries on earth. I guess that metric is derived from formal, and institutional freedom or non-freedom promoting policies, but unfortunately, in some respects Sweden is looking increasingly out of place in such a high position on that list. Anybody who points out that the country's immigration policies are close to destroying the country face…

> there has been some recent talk of actual formalized anti-freedom measures This is the kind of things that worry people in the top freest countries. In the lower ranked countries there is far more than talk about such things going on.

That's a fine point, it is basically a tautology though, and certainly doesn't mean we should ignore this kind of thing, lest the top free countries go the way of the less free.

What I find most disturbing about this guy's rhetorik is that he says "Politicians give us the right," when that is exactly opposite how things are understood to work in modern democracies. The people give their consent to politicians and by extension the government to govern.

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