71–80 of 168 posts
> there is only one word. Corruption The word I would use is Socialism. They are of course related.
If one prefers to believe that any particular -ism has some kind of a corner on the corruption market, as it were... well, that must be a nice, simple, orderly world they get to live in.
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…
> there is only one word. Corruption The word I would use is Socialism. They are of course related.
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 po…
It seems there are active in Venezuela: http://transparencia.org.ve/
I just discover them a few days ago, I don't know more.
> there is only one word. Corruption The word I would use is Socialism. They are of course related.
Corruption is a much better term. As other philosophical ideas that are not well delimited, socialism is an empty tag that can mean anything as you want. Not much different than words like 'neoliberalism' or so. Elastic terms for filling empty phrases without any real substance.
Also, even if everyone does as honest work as they can, the coordination problems in a gigantic top-down organization like this would doom it on its own.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. Argentina, Brazil and other latam countries really do not need donations. Venezuela is a very rich country that actually have the second largest oil reserves, ironically. It would be like donating stuff to Saudi Arabia. Our problem is rampant corruption, populism and mismanagement derived from it. Brazil is trying to get out. Argentina is out of it, lets hope is not too late. For Venezuela is already too late.
Venezuela is not a very rich nation. It would be like claiming that Afghanistan is very rich because they have massive deposits of metals. In just three years, their inflation (the bolivar has lost 97% of its value) and economic contraction has taken their GDP per capita from ~$14,000 to ~$4,000. They've lost at least 70% of their economy, and it's not over yet. Saudi Arabia's economic output is nearly five times gre…
> there is only one word. Corruption The word I would use is Socialism. They are of course related.
Venal is more related to corruption as there are independent of any economic and politic systems, even the troll ones.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US had a lot of debt to "Vulture Funds" after the Revolution. The US paid. Like the US, Argentina's decision to pay its debts will enable the country to borrow, which is useful if you want to invest in stuff which will improve your economy.
I'm unfamiliar with that part of US history, can you provide me with a brief recap (or better yet, a link to an article) explaining how their creditors behaved like vulture funds? (edit: do you mean this? https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/loans ) This isn't about regular creditors, but about vulture funds, sovereign debt, ruining countries, and the never-ending cycle of incurring even more debt to pay fo…
Many were naturally for paying what was due to soldiers, and against paying off the speculators who were "preying" on the situation. By paying it all off, Alexander Hamilton demonstrated the (a) the US would make good on its debts and (b) US debts can be can be liquidated bought and sold freely without exception.
Both of these points make it easier for a country to obtain new finances on demand at lower cost. Point (a) means the lender can be assured the country will not disown the loan. Point (b) because debt which can be freely sold gives the lender much more flexibility.
[1] http://www.historycentral.com/NN/economic/Hamiltontorescue.h...
> there is only one word. Corruption The word I would use is Socialism. They are of course related.