The same thing will come to Hungary in 5 years. Mark my words. Edit: who the hell actually downvotes without a response?
Don't say "Mark my words" - explain why you think it will happen in Hungary and leave people to judge.
Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis
91–100 of 168 posts
Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis
#92A 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.
The one in Honduras was a 'charter city'. The idea is backed by people who are not just "Randroids":
Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Not entirely the same thing. 'Load shedding' in South Africa has effectively been scheduled blackouts of entire metropolitan areas, including the major cities, to avoid a grid meltdown and to allow for plant repairs.
It's caused by too many plants being poorly-maintained and breaking down and insufficient investment in new power plants caused by corruption and incompetence. In other words, not regular localised reductions or transfers of load, but the same wide scale forced blackouts as being discussed elsewhere in this thread.
There has, thankfully, been no load shedding over the past few months, but only because the economy has slowed down sufficiently that the country's electricity demand has dropped below its regular levels.
Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis
#94Earlier 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, 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 disastro…
A bit nearer to you, Brazil also surrendered to vulture funds at the 90's, and paid it back with things running very smoothly. During all the time the opposition (current government) was screaming how it was impossible to pay it back just like it's doing in Argentina now.
But yes, there are debits that are impossible to pay back. Argentina is too big to get one of those in 90 days, but you may be in that hole - it depends on the details.
Also I'll disagree. Corruption is the single most important issue on LATAM today. It's the root of nearly all of our problems.
Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis
#95Earlier 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.
> The plants would be built and operated by an outside company - e.g Areva, Rosatom.
And take the risk of being "nationalized" by the state.
Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis
#96Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 disastro…
A bit nearer to you, Brazil also surrendered to vulture funds at the 90's, and paid it back with things running very smoothly. During all the time the opposition (current government) was screaming how it was impossible to pay it back just like it's doing in Argentina now. But yes, there are debits that are impossible to pay back. Argentina is too big to get one of those in 90 days, but you may be in that hole - it de…
Thanks for the reply and for the polite disagreement :)
> Brazil also surrendered to vulture funds at the 90's, and paid it back with things running very smoothly
What was the impact of those policies on the population, especially on the poor? Honest question, this isn't a trick question -- in fact, I'll be honest and say my assumption is that neoliberal policies in Latin America hurt the poor and create the ground for the rise of so-called populist governments. With Brasil this theory of mine is made less clear by the fact that, if I'm not mistaken, Lula's PT continued many of the policies of Cardoso... I remember being very confused about that!
Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis
#98Related 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…
A similar thing happened in Zimbabwe. Using a race-based system, they changed control of farms from one set of people to another (with rather strong rhetoric about how certain people would never be welcome again). Turns out a bit of experience was required, so they had to back down on that position:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/zimbabwe-seized-...
The article indicates that Zimbabwe went from being an exporter of food to requiring food aid to prevent starvation.
Zimbabwe just recently took over all diamond mines. Which sounds sorta OK in theory, but I can only imagine it's going to result in less official output and more corruption. Seems like they'd be better just insisting on very high fees.
Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis
#99Here in Tasmania we're not at the shut down stage yet, but it's something no one wants to talk about. They're not asking residents to shutdown yet, but if things continue the way they are, who knows. The major companies/power users are currently being rationed (Aluminium smelters, paper mills etc) The state relies on hydro-electric power, and last year sold off a lot of its "excess" power to Victoria via the Basslink…
Is anyone installing solar panels on a small or large scale?
Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis
#100> there is only one word. Corruption The word I would use is Socialism. They are of course related.
I associate corruption with large-scale human endeavors, generally. 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.
I didn't say - or mean - that socialism is the only or worst cause of corruption.
I can agree with "large-scale human endeavors" being where it thrives the easiest.