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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

#81
post #64

The same thing will come to Hungary in 5 years. Mark my words. Edit: who the hell actually downvotes without a response?

I'll do it once I get enough points to do it.

Mwahahahaha.

(Actually, it's the "Mark my words" thing. Makes you look a bit of an ass, old bean. Regardless of your being right or not.)

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

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The plants would be built and operated by an outside company What are you, a capitalist? That won't work in Venezuela's current political climate.

Political climates tend to shift when people figure out that idealism won't fill their bellies or keep a roof over their heads.

Misplaced and ill-thought-out idealism at that.

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

#83
post #13

A real life Ayn Rand story.

Ya, I'm a libertarian, and I find myself flinching a bit while reading Atlas Shrugged. What's even funnier, though, is seeing real life unfold in front of my eyes that matches it, almost so perfectly that you'd think the politicians were following it as a script!

I just finished it. While a little over-the-top at times to get points across, it addresses well the much-maligned "hyperproductive" of society.

It was staggering how perfectly the first third matches our current socioeconomic conditions, with the only difference in trajectory being the story having the productive rich bail out of society specifically to crash the "looters"' plans.

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

#84

> there is only one word. Corruption The word I would use is Socialism. They are of course related.

and to emphasize, socialism is in fact quite well defined -- especially national socialism (e.g. the Nazi Party of Germany). Here's a good overview of what socialism is, broadly speaking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

The Nazi Party, even though it has "socialism" and "workers" in its title, is not considered to be a form of Socialism (nor, for that matter, to be pro workers). Not that it matters much, but the only mention of Nazism in the Wikipedia article you linked doesn't refer to it as a form of socialism.

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

#85
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would it be a disaster? The plants would be built and operated by an outside company - e.g Areva, Rosatom. And hydro power they have today is not reliable. So they would need to use coal or natural gas. And both of these pollute compared to nuclear.

A lot of outside companies were seized by the government and nationalized.

I'm a huge fan of nuclear power, but I do tend to think it would be a bad idea in an unstable country.

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

#86
This ends the great socialists experiments and arguments. It used to be that people in ultra-leftist circles used to cite Venezuela as an argument for socialist successes, now even those arguments are crumbling.

It's hard to be a determined leftist nowadays. I moved off long ago. If you want better standards of living for people, it's high trust capitalism that's going to do it.

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

#87
post #64

The same thing will come to Hungary in 5 years. Mark my words. Edit: who the hell actually downvotes without a response?

I'll do it once I get enough points to do it. Mwahahahaha. (Actually, it's the "Mark my words" thing. Makes you look a bit of an ass, old bean. Regardless of your being right or not.)

Please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.

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

#88
post #79
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

After the Revolution, the US owed money to many including soldiers who served in the War. After a few years, it seemed like the payments would never be made, and speculators began buying up the debt at steep discounts. These speculators basically acted exactly like the "Vulture Funds" did in the Argentine situation. Many were naturally for paying what was due to soldiers, and against paying off the speculators who we…

Thanks! Very informative. I see the parallels now.

However, am I right in thinking that, along with incurring new debt, Hamilton also recommended additional policies, such as taxation and protection of the industry? These are points of criticism of Argentina's new government: relaxation of import restrictions, and decreasing taxation of businesses and of exports from the wealthy agricultural sector.

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

#89
post #3

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".

Nepal calls it load shedding too. In practice it's fairly counterproductive there. People buy banks of car batteries and inverters to store power when it's available and use it later. So they use as much power as before, with the added benefit of tons of hazardous waste from all the equipment at each building. Which of course they just throw into piles of broken stuff.

Does the same happen in South Africa?

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

#90
post #13

A real life Ayn Rand story.

Here's another: https://www.vice.com/read/atlas-mugged-922-v21n10 The eagerness of a different (but overlapping) libertarian cabal to court favor with the notoriously corrupt (and murderous) regime in Honduras to build their own version of paradise on the northern coast of that country (at the expense of the local Garífuna community) is also quite telling. Her legacy would seem to cut both ways, we might say.

Except for the small detail that these guys' project swiftly disintegrated due to personality conflicts, zoning issues, and possible fraud before it ever started, and the most damage it did was that a couple of contractors didn't get paid. Meanwhile, Chavismo has immiserated millions of people and imposed a corrupt authoritarian government on a whole nation. So the parallels aren't really very close at all.
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