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Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

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Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

#41

Post by beatpanda »

hellcow wrote: post #8

Related anecdote: a friend of mine is an engineer that builds and operates glass factories all around the world, mostly producing bottles for beer, wine, and liquor. One of his company's factories was in Venezuela, and while he was there working, Chavez et co decided to nationalize that industry because they were "forcing unfair labor conditions." The company rushed to get every American out of the country before the…

What were the labor conditions like for the workers in the factories your friend was building?

Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

#43

Post by rafaelm »

If anyone wants to understand why this is happening in one of the largest oil producers in the world, there is only one word. Corruption. At every single level of the government.

The government can blame El Niño all you want, but they can't hide the fact that they stole most of the money that was invested in non-working power plants all over the country. I worked in 3 of those (one from Derwick, see below) and saw power plants from 1995 that were sold as new at 3x the price of a NEW power plant.

One of the companies is called Derwick. Run by some guys with ties to the government, some as young as 23 years old, with ZERO experience in the field. They are all now multi-millionaires.

You can read more here: http://infodio.com/021014/how/to/steal/70/million/one/day/de...

http://infodio.com/030813/jose/aguilar/derwick/associates/bi...

http://www.infodio.com is a site that tracks a lot of corruption cases. It is of course, blocked in Venezuela.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derwick_Associates

http://www.wsj.com/articles/venezuelan-energy-company-derwic...

https://cryptome.org/2015/06/ve-us-corruption.htm

More on the power crisis in general:

http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/160227/nation...

I can go on and on about this. But this basically boils down to massive, massive corruption that has penetrated Venezuela at every level.

Where I live, we've already had blackouts 2-3 times a week. Once this problem hits Caracas, the capital, we know things are going to get bad. The government has done everything possible to keep things normal there but they might not be able to for much longer.

Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

#44

Post by the_af »

raverbashing wrote: post #39
lucio wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? After 90 days of govt.? "in a profound unpayable debt"? Compared to Kirchner's administration, Macri's waaaay better. This is a sample of Kirchner's gov: http://www.eltrecetv.com.ar/telenoche/impactante-video-el-hi... You can see in the video, the son and the accountant of a major contractor from Kirchner's Administration. They're counting corruption money, and drinking a scotch to celebrate afterwards. Looks…

Yes, it is Complainers are usually Kirchner "fans" that can't stand that people were fed up with her and kicked her out It's their strategy

Well, she wasn't running for re-re-election so she couldn't have been kicked out (personally, I think if she had run, she would have won against Macri, but lost because her party ran with Scioli, a highly divisive and uncharismatic politican, but I admit that's speculation on my part. Let's remember on her first re-election she won with 54% of the votes on the first round, almost unprecedented).

I assume you meant her party was kicked out. Since 49% of voters voted for this party, and Macri's (somewhat fragmented) coalition only won on ballotage, I'd say it was a pretty close call... and now the country is highly divided.

Regardless, the political left doesn't like either Kirchner or Macri, and their criticisms are valid.

Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

#45

Post by rafaelm »

lucio wrote: post #35
the_af wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be aware the country is highly divided along political lines, and some of us in Argentina are thinking Macri is sinking the country into a profound unpayable debt and a crisis the likes of which-- well, I was about say "we've never faced before", but sadly my country is cyclical. We have faced it before, and we will again. I have reason to be pessimistic about Macri's policies.

Really? After 90 days of govt.? "in a profound unpayable debt"? Compared to Kirchner's administration, Macri's waaaay better. This is a sample of Kirchner's gov: http://www.eltrecetv.com.ar/telenoche/impactante-video-el-hi... You can see in the video, the son and the accountant of a major contractor from Kirchner's Administration. They're counting corruption money, and drinking a scotch to celebrate afterwards. Looks…

Yeah, same thing is happening here in Venezuela. Chavistas now want the new Assembly to fix what chavismo has been destroying here (still is) for 18 years.

Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

#46

Post by the_af »

lucio wrote: post #35
the_af wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be aware the country is highly divided along political lines, and some of us in Argentina are thinking Macri is sinking the country into a profound unpayable debt and a crisis the likes of which-- well, I was about say "we've never faced before", but sadly my country is cyclical. We have faced it before, and we will again. I have reason to be pessimistic about Macri's policies.

Really? After 90 days of govt.? "in a profound unpayable debt"? Compared to Kirchner's administration, Macri's waaaay better. This is a sample of Kirchner's gov: http://www.eltrecetv.com.ar/telenoche/impactante-video-el-hi... You can see in the video, the son and the accountant of a major contractor from Kirchner's Administration. They're counting corruption money, and drinking a scotch to celebrate afterwards. Looks…

Yes, the almost complete surrender to the terms of the holdouts and vulture funds, Paul Singer included, will sink the country into a debt I don't see how it can ever be paid. All within 90 days, quite a feat!

Alleged contractors corruption cases are a serious deal which should be investigated, no-one is denying that, but I don't think corruption alone is all that matters in a country. I'm more worried about disastrous policies. A perfectly honest politician can lead a country to ruin, and many of us don't think Macri is clean in any case.

Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

#47

Post by the_af »

sparky_z wrote: post #38
the_af wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be aware the country is highly divided along political lines, and some of us in Argentina are thinking Macri is sinking the country into a profound unpayable debt and a crisis the likes of which-- well, I was about say "we've never faced before", but sadly my country is cyclical. We have faced it before, and we will again. I have reason to be pessimistic about Macri's policies.

Fair enough. I've never been to Argentina, and can only go on what I've read in the news. I'm curious what policies you specifically think are going to sink the country into crisis. Is it just about his deal to make good on the defaulted bonds, or is he a profligate borrower and spender in other areas as well? If it's primarily the bond deal, I would be sympathetic to the argument that Macri is just being honest and…

Yes, in this concrete case I was thinking about the debt incurred in order to pay the holdouts and the "vulture funds", like Paul Singer's. I think it will be a short term respite that will ultimately lead the country to ruin.

Let's not forget kirchnerismo (the party ousted by Macri) arose from the ashes of De la Rua's government, which was fiscally conservative and "orthodox", and who few would accuse of being populist. His reign ended in the 2001 chaos, with economic upheaval, a collapse of the banking system, a few deaths and the goddamn president flying away in a helicopter! Kirchnerismo didn't even exist back then.

Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

#48

Post by Scoundreller »

RikNieu wrote: post #3
randiantech wrote: post #2

Thats a really sad situation, but is common in some LATAM countries. In example, in Argentina there's an active "energetic crisis" plan [1], where government defined an scheduled program to cut electricity in cities to try to mitigate demand. [1] http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/149949/power-cuts-i...

We have it in South Africa too. The official, political term for it is "load shedding".

Most proactive electric grids have load shedding plans. The question is how often do they need to put them in action.

Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

#49

Post by saint_fiasco »

vamur wrote: post #29

They should have built nuclear plants when oil was expensive.

That's a good idea in the general case, but in the case of Venezuela would lead to disaster.

Actually in Venezuela every power plant ends in disaster but disasters in nuclear plants have much more severe consequences.

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