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Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

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Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#41

Post by lainga »

yongjik wrote: post #36
stale2002 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those aren't socialist countries. They don't even call themselves that. I feel like a country has to at least call itself socialist, for it to count. A socialist country is one in which the means of production aren't privately owned. If most private businesses are illegal, that's socialism. The Nordic countries aren't even attempting to ban private businesses, or claiming that as their goal. The track record for coun…

That's all fine and dandy, but then so many Americans turn around and call universal healthcare socialism, never mind that it's implemented in pretty much every West European Country that are decidedly non-socialist according to your criterion. You can't use "socialism" to mean "Venezuela, and only Venezuela (well, maybe Cuba)" and then "anything that gives more power to the US federal government". Choose one. (I'm n…

I fail to see how that relates to the GP's argument. You just brought up something else that Americans do.

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#42

Post by eschevarria »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #30
cryptonector wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism isn't a theory. It's an emergent result of letting people own themselves, property, and the fruits of their own labor while also letting them trade their property and labor. Thus capitalism is freedom. To replace capitalism with any theory requires identifying which freedoms you mean to constrain or abandon altogether.

>It's an emergent result of letting people own themselves, property, and the fruits of their own labor while also letting them trade their property and labor. I'm not sure what system you're talking about, but what you're describing is certainly not Capitalism or freedom. Capitalism does not give people the full fruits of their labor, it allows the owner to steal the surplus value off of the workers, creating inequal…

Capitalism gives people the full fruits of their labor except when they voluntarily decide to give the fruits of their labor to someone else, possibly in exchange for something. Why would anyone do this? Specialization and trade. Maybe they are more productive if they can work with other people. Maybe they need access to capital. Maybe they prefer having something liquid, like money, instead of fruits that they cannot do much with. Maybe they prefer to have a stable income in the short term instead of having an income that depends on their productivity and the desirability of their fruits for other people in the current market conditions. But in any case it has to be voluntary—otherwise, it is not capitalism.

I agree that the prisons are bad, but the system that puts people in prisons is the state, not capitalism. Be sure to blame the right ideology. Same for the homelessness and poverty—to some extent it is impossible to prevent them because of scarcity, but to a great extent they are due to rent controls, zoning laws, restrictions on trade, deadweight loss from taxes. Again, be sure to blame the right ideology.

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#43

Post by csomar »

jose_zap wrote: post #35
csomar wrote: post #27

How come the society has yet to collapse if the salaries can't cover a few days of spending. I mean this reaches a critical point, as far as I see it: At some wage, the employee will bail out. Because it cost more to do the job (transportation/food) than the job pays. Apparently, this is not the case. As the workers are still going for work. The equation is certainly bad (I have no doubt about that) but it has not re…

The one thing that I learned being a Venezuelan is that things can always get worse. It is easy to thing that there is a bottom for how bad things can go, but clearly that was just hopeful thinking. The situation is a thousand times worse than when I left 6 years ago, an I would certainly consider what they are living now as a total collapse of society, yet I'm also sure that it could get even worse.

I’d say disintegrating but not collpased yet. The government is still sustaining itself. There is still Internet and cars driving around.

Yes, it can get way worse. The possible bottom is way deeper. I hope the US or UN intervene before that.

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#44

Post by marcosdumay »

csomar wrote: post #27

How come the society has yet to collapse if the salaries can't cover a few days of spending. I mean this reaches a critical point, as far as I see it: At some wage, the employee will bail out. Because it cost more to do the job (transportation/food) than the job pays. Apparently, this is not the case. As the workers are still going for work. The equation is certainly bad (I have no doubt about that) but it has not re…

I don't understand Venezuela. Really. I've lived through the 10000% inflation times at Brazil, but that's still 2 orders of magnitude shorter than their, and looks like a completely different reality.

What I can say is that society collapse is not a binary thing. Near 1/3 of Venezuela's population already escaped the country, with more gone each day. I'd also bet crime is at huge levels, but there isn't any data I would trust.

I imagine that if you are far from a border there isn't much you can do except continuing going to work. It's not like one can just throw their arm up and say "I'm done with society, I won't take part in it anymore". I also imagine that a large part of their real economy nowadays runs on US Dollars, the rest probably runs on Peruvian Peso, Brazilian Real, and toilet paper.

Besides, until this week gasoline was almost free. So the one thing I would expect to find there is transit.

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#45

Post by yongjik »

lainga wrote: post #41
yongjik wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all fine and dandy, but then so many Americans turn around and call universal healthcare socialism, never mind that it's implemented in pretty much every West European Country that are decidedly non-socialist according to your criterion. You can't use "socialism" to mean "Venezuela, and only Venezuela (well, maybe Cuba)" and then "anything that gives more power to the US federal government". Choose one. (I'm n…

I fail to see how that relates to the GP's argument. You just brought up something else that Americans do.

The problem is that when people debate whether socialist countries are bound to fail, everybody has their own definition of socialism.

From what I've seen, many people who believe the "danger" of socialism are also quite convinced that the US is in the danger of slipping into socialism. Why that doesn't happen in Sweden is left as exercise.

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#46

Post by prolikewh0a »

eschevarria wrote: post #42
prolikewh0a wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's an emergent result of letting people own themselves, property, and the fruits of their own labor while also letting them trade their property and labor. I'm not sure what system you're talking about, but what you're describing is certainly not Capitalism or freedom. Capitalism does not give people the full fruits of their labor, it allows the owner to steal the surplus value off of the workers, creating inequal…

Capitalism gives people the full fruits of their labor except when they voluntarily decide to give the fruits of their labor to someone else, possibly in exchange for something. Why would anyone do this? Specialization and trade. Maybe they are more productive if they can work with other people. Maybe they need access to capital. Maybe they prefer having something liquid, like money, instead of fruits that they canno…

>Capitalism gives people the full fruits of their labor except when they voluntarily decide to give the fruits of their labor to someone else

A lot of people don't have a choice otherwise, except homelessness and poverty. Not exactly a 'free' system. Runaway free market Capitalism creates this problem as it sends money to the very top leaving the rest to fight for a small portion of the pie. Working is not voluntary in USA unless you already have plenty of money, or are supported by someone with money.

>to some extent it is impossible to prevent them because of scarcity

There's no such thing as scarcity of pretty much anything in USA. We have 18.9 million vacant homes, with 3.5 million homeless [1]. We throw away 150,000 tons of food every single day [2]. There's no scarcity there, it's just capitalism at work.

I'm putting the blame on the correct ideology. None of this would happen under a sane system with checks and balances. What you're seeing right now is _raw capitalism_ at work.

[1] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-skip-bronson/post_733...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/18/american...

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#47

Post by eschevarria »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #29
tartuffe78 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many times do countries have to collapse before we can be sure?

Clock's been ticking for a long while now on Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. When will you give up waiting for these socialist states to collapse?

The states you mention are not socialist. They all rank high on the Economic Freedom of the World Index and on the Index of Economic Freedom. It is not even clear that they can be called social democracies.

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#48

Post by eschevarria »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #46
eschevarria wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism gives people the full fruits of their labor except when they voluntarily decide to give the fruits of their labor to someone else, possibly in exchange for something. Why would anyone do this? Specialization and trade. Maybe they are more productive if they can work with other people. Maybe they need access to capital. Maybe they prefer having something liquid, like money, instead of fruits that they canno…

>Capitalism gives people the full fruits of their labor except when they voluntarily decide to give the fruits of their labor to someone else A lot of people don't have a choice otherwise, except homelessness and poverty. Not exactly a 'free' system. Runaway free market Capitalism creates this problem as it sends money to the very top leaving the rest to fight for a small portion of the pie. Working is not voluntary…

> A lot of people don't have a choice otherwise, except homelessness and poverty. Not exactly a 'free' system.

Right. The system we are in is not a free system and those are indeed problems with this system.

> Runaway free market Capitalism creates this problem as it sends money to the very top leaving the rest to fight for a small portion of the pie.

Crony capitalism creates this problem, not free market capitalism. Crony capitalism is an opposite of a free market.

> Working is not voluntary in USA unless you already have plenty of money, or are supported by someone with money.

It is voluntary. It is unfortunately necessary too, in many cases, but again, the United States are only weakly capitalist.

> There's no such thing as scarcity of pretty much anything in USA.

The United States’ GDP per capita is $59,501. That’s scarcity.

> We have 18.9 million vacant homes, with 3.5 million homeless [1].

I just mentioned rent controls. I agree that this is bad, but it’s got nothing to do with capitalism.

> None of this would happen under a sane system with checks and balances.

Agreed. We might disagree about which system this is though.

> What you're seeing right now is _raw capitalism_ at work.

Either we’re not using the same definition of capitalism or it isn’t. I am anarcho-capitalist. Raw capitalism looks like not having a state, or at the very least having only a minimal state. What I’m seeing is Donald Trump imposing tariffs on solar panels, washing machines, and imports of steel and aluminum. Raw capitalism this is anything but.

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#49

Post by natecham »

crocal wrote: post #13
LarryDarrell wrote: post #5

The situation in Venezuela makes my heart hurt. Reading about how Hugo Chavez destroyed PDVSA through ignorance and incompetence is a real life example of how much damage a populist strongman can do.

Me too. I worked on some good projects there a few years ago and now this. Is there somewhere a “for dummies” analysis / explanation of the chain of events and decisions that led to the current situation in Venezuela? I can’t fathom how it is possible even in the most corrupt place in the world to reach such a sorry state.

I this article did a good job of summarizing the collapse (from the formation of OPEC in the early 60's to the present) https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/16/how-venezuela-struck-it...

Essentially they believed the oil price surge of the 70s would continue and failed the diversify the economy. This allowed Chavez to come along and take over in the late 90's on a socialist platform with promises to restore the economy. Chavez ignorant to production of oil and fighting to stay in power, gutted the state run PDVSA and severely inhibited production by diverting profits to fund his social programs. Eventually production and profits dipped, with the government deciding to print more money to keep social programs running.

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#50

Post by wonthegame »

scythe wrote: post #33
crocal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. I worked on some good projects there a few years ago and now this. Is there somewhere a “for dummies” analysis / explanation of the chain of events and decisions that led to the current situation in Venezuela? I can’t fathom how it is possible even in the most corrupt place in the world to reach such a sorry state.

The crucial mistake was the firing of tens of thousands of employees of the state oil company, PDVSA. Eviscerating the state oil business in an economy that depends on oil exports is, um, bad. With half of their employees replaced by Chavez yes-men, PDVSA made poor strategic decisions that left them with (almost) no new oil wells when the ones they had been using ran dry. To be specific, money that should have been u…

The firing wasn’t the issue. It was a controversial move but it is not what caused the ongoing collapse. The exchange rates being in their favour is how the govt paid for the social programs. Now that the rate is not in their favour and oil prices have crashed... now it makes it difficult to pay for your debt.

The US smelled blood and decided to help speed up the inevitable by adding sanctions. This increased the cost of their debt. Maduro is attempting to avoid further economic harm with the petro coin.

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